MOSCOW/KIEV, Jan 2: European states started suffering from lower Russian gas supplies on Friday while Moscow accused Kiev of stealing transit gas a day after deliveries to Ukraine were cut in a contract dispute.

Russia’s gas export monopoly Gazprom said some countries in the Balkans had told it they were getting less gas than they had asked for and gas importers in Hungary and Poland said pressure on their pipelines had dropped.

“Pressure started to decline at 1500 GMT. Pressure is declining continuously. However, the drop has not yet reached a critical level,” Edina Lakatos, a spokeswoman for the Hungarian energy company MOL’s natural gas transmission subsidiary, said.Ukraine’s state energy firm Naftogaz denied it was illegally siphoning off Russian gas.—Reuters