European nations left shivering by a cutoff of Russian natural gas should form a consortium to purchase from Russia the fuel that is needed to pump the gas though Ukraine's pipelines, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin suggested.
For the third day in a row, Russia's state-controlled gas giant Gazprom opened a tap near the border and asked Ukraine to send a limited amount of gas to Europe. Ukraine's state-run gas company Naftogaz refused, saying the route Gazprom demanded would force Ukraine to shut off energy supplies to millions of Ukrainian consumers first.
