Realty Review

MOSCOW (AP) – Leaders of Russia and the European Union on Thursday launched a two-day summit overshadowed by the stress on the natural gas supply to Europe and the war for years past between Russia and Georgia.

The Russian president Dimitri Medvedev receives senior EU officials in the eastern city of Khabarovsk, a 6100 km (3.800 miles) and seven time zones away from Moscow.

Russia and the EU have close ties through trade and both say they want to improve relations, which have been strained for years because of disputes ranging from tariffs on imported timber to history Kremlin's human rights.

The EU suspended negotiations to create a closer after the war between Russia and the pro-Western Georgia last August. In October, the union announced it would negotiate.

However, there is little progress in the talks and reach Khabarovsk after an outage of Russian natural gas via Ukraine to Europe left shivering cold during two weeks of February.

Medvedev dined Thursday with Czech President Vaclav Klaus, when his country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, and the chairman of the the European Union, the Portuguese Jose Manuel Barroso, the head of EU foreign policy, the Spanish Javier Solana. The talks will be central to the summit on Friday.

An adviser to the Kremlin said Medvedev pressure on the union to help Ukraine to pay its own energy with Moscow since it represents a continuing threat of a new cut in the supply.

Medvedev also want to hear the explanation about what Europe calls Russia a dangerous and blind support to the government of Georgia's pro-Western President Mikhail Saakashvili. The EU has been at odds with the Russian actions in that country.