VOLYN, Sept. 15 - Ukraine's national oil and gas company has poured cold water on a deal concluded last week to lay a natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany on the Baltic Sea floor, arguing that the project was essentially unfeasible and had largely political considerations behind it.

"I think that the president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, decided to help his colleague, [German] Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, ahead of the [parliamentary elections] and give [him] a little boost via the implementation of such a project," the chief executive of Naftogaz Ukrayiny, Oleksiy Ivchenko, told reporters in Volyn region.