KIEV, Feb. 11 – The United States and the European Union have apparently not received any requests for a loan to Ukraine, contrary to assertions by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a top official at President Viktor Yushchenko’s office said Wednesday.

Tymoshenko, whose government is in advanced discussions with Russia over a $5 billion loan, said recently similar requests had been submitted to other countries, including the U.S.

But Bohdan Sokolovskiy, Yushchenko’s top energy security envoy, said the request for the Russian loan had been made bypassing the Foreign Ministry, while other countries had not received any requests at all.

“We have an official response from the Foreign Ministry saying that absolutely no requests had been made to the Russian Federation through Ukrainian diplomatic channels concerning the credit,” Sokolovskiy said.

“The same [negative] response came from the European Commission, and today, as far as I know, from Washington,” Sokolovskiy said.

The office of Yushchenko suspects the idea of $5 billion loan emerged during a one-on-one meeting between Tymoshenko and her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on January 17 and was part of the natural gas agreement signed January 19.

More broadly, the developments may underscore Tymoshenko’s alleged drift towards pro-Russian policy, a turnaround for a politician who has been so far presenting herself as a pro-Western figure.

“Obviously they spoke over the Russian loan in a way that is not in line with an international practice,” Sokolovskiy said. “These talks were not agreed with the head of state and this leads to certain risks.”

Yushchenko said Tuesday the Russian loan may undermine Ukraine’s national security and may be used by Russia to seize control over Ukrainian natural gas pipelines should Naftogaz default on the payment.

Sokolovskiy said: “We have reasons to believe that this loan may cause seizure of the Ukrainian gas transportation system in the future, as in some other countries,” such as Belarus and Molodova.

Tymoshenko denied the allegations. She said the idea to borrow the money had come up recently as a measure to finance planned budget deficit this year.

To prove the point, Tymoshenko said the government had submitted similar requests to six countries, including Russia, the U.S., Japan, China and the E.U.

“We have already received positive replies to these requests from some countries, including from Russia,” Tymoshenko said at a security conference in Munich over the weekend.

The talks over the $5 billion Russian loan come as the International Monetary Fund has been considering whether to suspend its $16.4 billion loan to Ukraine for the government’s alleged failure to keep budget deficit under control.

Meanwhile, Tymoshenko’s handling of the Russian loan negotiations drew further criticism in Ukraine on Tuesday after a copy of the government’s letter authorizing the talks had been leaked to the media.

In the letter, the government agrees to discuss the settlement of former Soviet Union’s assets and liabilities between Russia and Ukraine through approval of the ‘zero option.’

Ukraine has been resisting to accepting the zero option for 18 years, believing this would put the country in a disadvantage compared with Russia.

Asked by reporters on Tuesday to explain the letter, Tymoshenko said she had never seen it.

“I haven’t seen it by my eyes,” Tymoshenko said. “It does not have a signature of the prime minister.” (tl/ez)