Twelve European countries are now without any gas from Russia after Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic announced this morning that their supplies had halted altogether. Slovakia declared a state of energy emergency.

The three join Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Turkey as the effects of Moscow's bitter row with Ukraine over gas payments inexorably spreads westwards.

France, Italy and Germany have already reported that their supplies from Russia are markedly down.

Gazprom, the Russian state gas monopoly, confirmed today that it had cut the amount of gas it was shipping to Europe through Ukrainian pipelines by a further 21 million cubic metres - the amount of gas, it said, that Kiev had stolen yesterday from the supplies intended for Europe.

In an exchange of recriminations, Alexander Medvedev, the deputy chief executive of Gazprom, said however that it was Ukraine, not Russia, which had shut off the flow of gas to Europe altogether.

"Unfortunately the situation is continuing to deteriorate," said Mr Medvedev. "Yesterday night Ukraine completely shut down all export pipelines to Europe via Ukraine."

He warned that there was a growing risk that the empty gas pipes would be damaged by cold.

But the Ukrainian gas company blamed the Russians. "Russia stopped all transit through Ukraine" at 7:44 am (0544 GMT), said Naftogaz spokesman Valentin Zemlyansky. "Russia has left Europe without gas."

Viktor Yushchenko, the President of Ukraine, wrote to his Russian counterpart Dmitri Medvedev demanding that Russia resume full gas supplies, pending a settlement of the payment row.

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 70 per 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.

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