KIEV, Dec. 18 - Ukraine will hold talks with the European Union Thursday over Russian natural gas supplies amid signs that negotiations between Kiev and Moscow have been making slow progress, President Viktor Yushchenko’s office reported Thursday.

Yushchenko’s top energy security envoy, Bohdan Sokolovskiy, will travel to London on Thursday for the talks to “regulate issues of cooperation with Russia and the European Union in supplies and transit of natural gas,” the presidential office reported in a statement.