Outside, the temperature plummeted to minus 12. Inside, the gas stopped flowing to homes in some of Europe's eastern cities in the dead of night and stayed off all day while the thermometer stayed below zero.

Tens of thousands living on the shores of the Black Sea were the first to feel the bitter impact of Russia's dispute with Ukraine over gas payments on the coldest day of the year.

With even icier conditions forecast for this week, the gas flow from Russia dried up during the day to nine countries, leading Bulgaria and Slovakia to consider declaring states of emergency and others to warn that just a few days' reserves remained.

In Britain there were increasing concerns that families could be forced to pay more than expected for their gas and electricity. The “big six” energy suppliers — British Gas, ScottishPower, Scottish and Southern Energy, EDF Energy, npower and E.ON — had been widely expected to cut their retail gas and electricity prices over the next few weeks by about 10 per cent, reflecting a marked drop in the wholesale price of gas last autumn.

British wholesale prices leapt sharply yesterday, though, as Russia's decision to withhold gas from Ukraine over unpaid bills and an unsigned contract for 2009 grew into dire shortages farther down the pipelines that take 36 hours to pump gas across the vast former Soviet country. Italy reported a 90 per cent cut in its Russian gas, France a reduction of 70per cent and two importers in Germany said that they had serious shortfalls.

Most countries have stockpiled several weeks' supplies after two mild winters and experience of a similar dispute between Moscow and Kiev in 2006. That row lasted three days but the latest disagreement, which started on New Year's Day, seems to be far from over. There was one glimmer of hope when the head of Ukraine's gas company agreed to go to Moscow for talks tomorrow with Gazprom, the Russian state-controlled monopoly gas supplier.

With the Russian gas supply cut entirely yesterday to Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Turkey, the EU broke from its diplomatic approach to demand a resolution to the crisis. “Without prior warning and in clear contradiction with the reassurances given by the highest Russian and Ukrainian authorities to the European Union, gas supplies to some EU member states have been substantially cut,” the EU said.

“This is completely unacceptable. The Czech EU presidency and the European Commission demand that gas supplies be immediately restored to the EU and that the two parties [Russia and Ukraine] resume at once negotiations with a view to a definitive settlement of their bilateral commercial dispute.”

Around Europe, both Russia and Ukraine are being blamed for the worsening situation. In Bulgaria, which relies almost completely on Russia for gas and where households in the cities of Varna and Dobrich are already without gas, the Prime Minister said that there was only one week's supply left in reserves and appealed for industry to cut usage. The President even proposed that an ancient nuclear power plant, closed as a condition of Bulgaria joining the EU because it was deemed too dangerous, should be switched back on.

Turkey was seeking gas from Iran and Croatia introduced rations for industrial users to maintain domestic supplies. Austria, which lost 90 per cent of its normal supplies, said that it had three months' reserves but called an emergency meeting at its Economy Ministry. Slovakia, which is entirely dependent on Russia for gas, was considering a state of emergency after deliveries fell by 70 per cent.

Russia and Ukraine continued to blame each other for Europe's shortfalls, with no independent verification possible. Ukraine turned off three pipelines because it said that Russian supplies had halved, while Russia said that it was withholding the amount that Kiev was allegedly stealing.

Gazprom has demanded a large price increase for 2009 and says that payment for November and December has not been fully received. It said that it supplied 65 million cubic metres (mcm) to Europe yesterday through Ukraine, a fall of 78 per cent from the 300 mcm that it had been supplying since the dispute started.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change at Whitehall called for Moscow and Kiev to urgently work to resolve the dispute. “We back the European Union's call for gas supplies to be restored immediately and that both parties restart negotiations with a view to a speedy resolution of this commercial dispute,” a statement said. The department said that less than 2per cent of gas was imported from Russia and that it did not expect British supplies to be affected. Around 40 per cent of the gas used in Britain will be imported this year, up from 27 per cent in 2007.

That proportion is expected to rise to 75 per cent by 2015. Most of these imports come via pipelines from Norway and Holland. Britain is also able to import liquefied natural gas via ships to terminals at the Isle of Grain in Kent and Milford Haven in Wales.

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