KIEV, Dec. 8 – The creation of joint ventures between Russia's Gazprom and Ukraine’s Naftogaz Ukrayiny to extract coal methane and develop the offshore Pallas natural gas field in the Black Sea will not settle Ukraine's energy problems, Russian experts said at a conference entitled "The energy problems of Europe and the issue of Russian-Ukrainian cooperation" in Kiev on Tuesday.

"Those volumes that would be extracted would not settle problems of the Ukrainian energy balance in general," said Tatiana Mitrova, Director for International Markets, Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

"I would consider them as test measures as part of preparations for a larger and more complicated deal on the creation of a large JV between Gazprom and Naftogaz."