A scribble on the bottom of a supposed agreement between Ukraine and Russia kept the gas to Europe switched off for a fifth day yesterday but both countries insisted last night that they had agreed finally to resume supplies this morning.

A pact drawn up to restart gas flows collapsed on Sunday when the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister signed the document but added a proviso stating his country’s belief that it had settled all its bills from last year.

Diplomats said that the handwritten addition to a paper carefully drafted by the EU had led Gazprom, the Russian state-controlled energy company, to pull out of the deal and leave 12 countries, including Austria and Bulgaria, without supplies.

Both sides signed a second version of the agreement yesterday, which details the work of 22 EU monitors in Ukraine and Russia to check the flow of gas amid claims from Moscow that Kiev was stealing supplies that were supposed to pass on to Europe.

Russia stopped supplies to Ukraine on New Year’s Day in a dispute over price rises and closed off the gas to Europe last Wednesday. EU energy ministers meeting in Brussels agreed to speed up plans to diversify gas sources away from Russia and pipe-lines away from Ukraine after a dispute that has highlighted Europe’s precarious reliance on the two feuding neighbours.

Bulgaria, which relies totally on Russian gas piped through Ukraine and has seen whole towns cut off in freezing temperatures, formally requested €400 million to link up with new pipes from Greece and Romania. Slovakia was ordered by the European Commission to abandon plans to switch on a decommissioned Soviet-era nuclear power plant to meet huge electricity demands during the gas drought.

Alexander Medvedev, the deputy chief executive of Gazprom, said that supplies should be restarted at 7am GMT today “if there are no obstacles”. The EU has warned that it will take at least 36 hours after that before gas reaches Europe, but Ukraine said that it would try to speed up the process.

Ukraine will remain starved of Russian gas because the two sides have still not agreed on a 2009 contract. Kiev said that it had enough gas stockpiled to cope until the spring.

Times Recommends

• Please help: maimed children of war want their lives back
• Cabal seizes diamond riches to buy power
• White House gatecrashers got to the president