MOSCOW, January 31 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin denied Tuesday that there was any justification for talk of Russia using its "energy weapon" against its neighbors in an effort to achieve political goals. "We do not hurt our customers, if we are talking about the countries of the former U.S.S.R. We just create equal conditions for them, and believe this is right," Putin said.
Russia at the end of last year began a policy of charging international prices for gas supplies to its former Soviet Union neighbors. Prices to the countries had previously been less than a quarter of the levels paid by Russia's European gas customers.
But Putin said he did not think that a switch to market prices could harm Russia's policy in the former Soviet republics.
"I don't think that the change to market pricing with our closest neighbors could cause any damage to our policy in the post-Soviet region," he said.
Putin said Russia and Ukraine - which attempted to hold out against Russia's efforts to hike prices, creating a dispute that briefly threatened European gas supplies - had long been discussing a switch to market-based trade.
"This was no surprise for our partners," he said.
