Russia said today it will resume gas exports to Europe as soon as international monitors are in place in Ukraine to verify that none of the supplies are being illegally siphoned off as they transit the country.

The pledge came from Alexi Miller, the chief executive of Gazprom, the world's largest gas company, after a series of chaotic meetings in Brussels between European Union politicians and officials and Russian and Ukrainian representatives.

"Our agreement with the European Union is that once monitors are deployed in Ukraine and have access to the gas installations we will immediately resume 100 per cent of supplies to Europe," he said.

He added: "We really treasure our reputation as a reliable supplier and are prepared to supply Europe with as much gas as it needs."

Earlier, Mr Miller's counterpart at Ukraine's Naftogaz, Oleh Dubyna, told a meeting of European parliamentarians: "From today, I can guarantee that if natural gas comes to Ukraine from Russia it will be transported to Europe 100 per cent."

The European Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, has already received a political commitment from the Russian and Ukrainian prime ministers, Vladimir Putin and Yulia Tymoshenko that they will allow the gas supplies being sent through Ukraine to be monitored by independent experts.

The Commission aims to identify the members of the monitoring team later today and is in talks with Gazprom and Ukraine's Naftogaz to identify the centres where they would be based. There were predictions that the observers could be in place by Friday, but one official said it could be "a matter of a couple of days".

But given the time it takes for the gas to be transported across Ukraine, a country like Bulgaria, which is heavily dependent on the Russian exports and has declared a state of emergency because of the severe shortages, may not receive new supplies before the middle of next week.

After insisting for days that the gas conflict between Russia and Ukraine was a bilateral commercial dispute and that it would not mediate in the dispute, the European Union stepped in today to broker an end to the stalemate.

Mr Barroso and the European Parliament President, Hans-Gert Pöttering held separate meetings with Mr Miller and Mr Dubyna, warning them of the consequences if they failed to honour their commitments as supplier and transporter of gas to European consumers.

Despite the breakthrough, Russia and Ukraine continued to blame the other for the crisis which has robbed at least a dozen European countries of Russian gas in recent days.

Mr Miller accused Ukraine of not "living up to its commitments as a transit country" and maintained that under the European Energy Charter, countries which had suffered from the crisis had the right to sue Kiev.

Boris Tarasiuk, the chairman of the Ukraine parliament's Europe committee, retorted that Russia's move to increase the price of gas from $179.5 to $450 was "an attempt to destroy the Ukrainian economy" and that his country was "the subject of worldwide blackmail by Russia's mass media".

At no point during the day did the Russian and Ukrainian delegations meet, apart from a brief encounter between Mr Miller and Mr Dubyna. The Gazprom CEO made light of the fact, insisting that the two had already discussed the situation in Moscow the previous evening and had travelled to Brussels together.

But the absence of Russians at a special parliamentary hearing today on the gas crisis angered MEPs. Both delegations were invited, but only the Ukrainians attended.

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