Russia seeks $11bn in \\\'debt\\\' from Ukraine

Chairman of Russia's Gazprom Alexei Miller on Saturday said that Ukraine must pay back the full discount it has been granted on Russian gas over the past four years, worth $11.4 billion. Miller said this week's annulment of the so-called Kharkiv accords, which gave Ukraine cut-price Russian gas until 2017 in exchange for access to the Crimea's port facilities, means that Kiev should pay the sum total of this discount back. "The sum of the discount granted in the time that the Kharkiv accords were valid was $11.4 billion. That is the sum that the Russian government, the Russian budget did not receive," Miller told Russian television. The discount was a de-facto advance payment by Moscow for the future lease on Black Sea Fleet's facilities in the Crimean port of Sevastopol -- annexed by Russia with the rest of the peninsula -- and so must be paid back, he added, according to AFP.