BRUSSELS, March 23 (RIA Novosti) - The modernization...

The European Commission and Ukraine signed a joint declaration Monday on the modernization of Ukraine's gas pipeline network. The Commission estimated the cost of the necessary improvements at 2.5 billion euros ($3.4 billion), while Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko put the figure at twice that amount.

"Three billion dollars is just the initial figure," Valery Golubev said after Monday's international investment conference in Brussels.

Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said on Monday that Russia had been effectively excluded from the talks because the conference, convened by the European Commission, was limited to the bilateral format of discussions between Ukraine and the EU.

"While recognizing the urgency of the task to modernize [the Ukrainian gas transportation system] and expressing a readiness for any format - bilateral or trilateral - to participate in this work, we were forced to express our bewilderment with the fact that Russia was

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