Edited sentence: "I want to declare unequivocally ... that Ukraine has no debts to Gazprom," Mykola Azarov said.On October 3, 2007, the Russian state-owned gas supplier Gazprom threatened to cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine, saying that Ukraine owed Gazprom US$1.3 billion.The Guardian speculated that this threat was a signal of Russia's displeasure at the prospect of a new government headed by Yulia Tymoshenko.The Russian natural gas monopoly explained later that Ukrainian consumers owed the debt in question.The dispute over natural gas originally flared up when Ukraine was governed by parties associated with the Orange Revolution, and had appeared settled during Viktor Yanukovych's premiership.Ukraine's first deputy prime minister and finance minister said earlier that his country had no state debt for Russian natural gas supplies