Russia has suffered some reputationaldamage

"Gas transit, the Ukrainian side assured us, will berestored very soon," Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin saidafter talks that lasted into the early hours of Sunday. The United States urged Russian gas firm Gazprom to restartgas flows "immediately" in a statement from its embassy in Kiev. A spokeswoman for Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenkosaid she would fly back to Moscow on Monday for a signing if therespective gas companies, Gazprom and Naftogaz of Ukraine, hadfinalised details of the deal by then. The firms spent the day working out details of the accord,many of which were not made public. Foreign journalists werebarred from Gazprom's Moscow headquarters.

"The talks are going on at the moment, and it is not clearwhen they will end," a Gazprom spokesman said. Czech Industry Minister Martin Riman, speaking for the EU,said: "We remain realistic. The only thing that countsfor the EU is the resumption of gas supplies. For the time beingit is not clear when this resumption takes place." ONE-YEAR DISCOUNT After a bruising dispute that began on Jan 1, analysts saidthere were few winners. "We will see that Europe is going to review all its energypolicies pretty deeply," said Ronald Smith, chief strategist atAlfa Bank in Moscow. "Russia has suffered some reputationaldamage." Full details of the new agreement were not given. Putin said Moscow had agreed to give Ukraine a 20 percentdiscount from the price European consumers pay, on conditionKiev froze tariffs for Russian gas transit to Europe acrossUkraine in 2009 at last year's level "We also agreed that, starting Jan.

1, 2010, we will fullymove to gas prices and transit tariffs in line with Europeanlevels, without any reductions and discounts," Putin said. However, it was not clear which European market prices wouldbe applied and what formulas would be used to determine them. Underlining Putin's dominance in Russian government,President Dmitry Medvedev did not attend the negotiations withTymoshenko, and was not present when the deal was announced. Ukraine and Russia agreed not to use intermediaries in theirgas trade, a Russian government source said.