Russia cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine on Thursday after last-ditch talks on a 2009 contract failed late on Wednesday, but increased shipments to other European states, gas monopoly Gazprom said.

Armenia is not ruling out extending the Iran-Armenia natural gas pipeline to Europe to supply gas to European Union countries, the Armenian energy minister said on Monday.

The Nabucco project to build a trans-Caspian natural gas pipeline to Europe bypassing Russia is impracticable, the general secretary of the EU Energy Charter Secretariat said on Monday.

The Iran-Armenia gas pipeline, officially opened on March 19 by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Armenian President Robert Kocharian, has quickly emerged as a source of speculation about regional energy alliances. A trip to Armenia by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili two days after the pipeline's opening provided plenty of fuel for conjecture.

On March 19 Presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Robert Kocharian of Armenia inaugurated the operations of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline (Armenpress, IRNA, March 19, 20). Although the project's scope is modest in terms of volume and market potential, its commissioning reflects two incipient trends of Eurasia-wide and potentially global impact, in some ways as their harbinger.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Armenian counterpart on Monday formally opened the first Armenian section of a natural gas pipeline linking the two countries.