on October 2 and successfully have been moving forward since, have been broken up because, unfortunately, Ukrainian politicians were trying to keep "RosUkrEnergo" in business as a shadow intermediary... The negotiations between the two prime ministers and later between "Gazprom" and "Naftogaz Ukrainy" were ruined by those Ukrainian political groups, who have gotten and are planning to get corrupt benefits from "RosUkrEnergo"." On 17 January 2009, President of Russia Dmitriy Medvedev said, "I think that our Ukrainian partners and us can trade gas without any intermediaries, especially without intermediaries with questionable reputation. The problem is that some participants of negotiations insisted on keeping the intermediary referring to the instructions from the top." On 1 January 2009, at 10 am, "Gazprom" completely stopped pumping gas to Ukraine. On 4 January, the Russian monopolist offered to sell Ukraine gas for $450 per 1000 cubic meter (minus a fee for gas transit through Ukraine), which was defined as a standard price for Eastern European countries. On 8 January 2009, the prime minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin, said that Ukraine would have to pay $470 for 1000 cubic meters of natural gas. Between 1 and 18 January, Central and Eastern European countries received significantly less gas. Ukrainian heat-and-power stations were working to utmost capacity. Due to sub-zero temperatures, the entire housing and public utilities sectors were on the verge of collapse. On 14 January, the European Commission and the Czech presidency in the European Union demanded the immediate renewal of gas deliveries in full capacity lest the reputations of Russia and Ukraine as reliable EU partners be seriously damaged. On 18 January 2009, after five-day-long talks, prime ministers Putin and Tymoshenko came to agreement on the renewal of gas delivery to Ukraine and other EU countries. The parties agreed upon the following: A return to direct contract deals between "Gazprom" and "Naftogaz Ukrainy"; the removal of non-transparent intermediaries; the introduction of formula-based pricing for Ukraine (which also works for other Eastern European countries); and a switch to a $2.7 transit fee, which is close to the average price in Europe. According to the new gas contract, in 2009 Ukraine paid an average price of $232.98 per 1000 cubic meters, while other European consumers were paying above $500 per 1000 cubic meters. 2010 presidential election Tymoshenko was a candidate in the Ukrainian presidential elections of 2010, but lost that election to Viktor Yanukovych (Tymoshenko received