The heads of Russia's and Ukraine's national gas companies will hold talks in Moscow today aimed at heading off a dispute over gas supplies from Turkmenistan, central Asia's largest gas exporter.

Alexei Miller, chief executive of Russia's Gazprom, and Olexy Ivchenko, chairman of Ukraine's Naftogaz, are to search for compromises between the competing strategies of Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, and Viktor Yushchenko, the new pro-western president of Ukraine, both of whom want to secure their grip on Turkmenistan's gas output.