Ukraine's Energoatom stopped its exports to Russia overnight, its press office told AFP.

Energoatom exports 500 million kilowatt hours of electricity to Russia each month, a spokeswoman said.

The move came after Ukraine's national electricity regulation commission hiked the price at which Energoatom buys electricity for Russian exports by 77 percent, from 6.91 kopeks (1.3 US cents) per kilowatt hour to 12.2 kopeks per kilowatt hour, Interfax reported.

The price increase was effective from July 1, Interfax said.

The head of the regulation commission said that the price increase was based on calculations by the national wholesale electricity operator, Energorynok.

Energorynok computed a price under which it was economically feasible for the wholesale market to sell Ukrainian energy for export, Interfax quoted commission head Valery Kalchenko as saying.

Kalchenko said the increase was not connected to an ongoing dispute between Ukraine and Russia over gas prices and deliveries and said that if Moscow refuses to purchase the electricity under the new price, Kiev could sell it either to Belarus or on the internal market.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.