Following a decision by the Ukraine’s National Power Engineering Regulating Commission to raise power tariffs, Russia’s UES has suspended a power purchase agreement with the country’s Energoatom.

The tariff hike to $0.024/kWh sees a domestic market increase of some 80% and has brought about the suspension of a monthly contract volume of more than 500 GWh that began in December 2004. State-owned Russia plans to increase its domestic output to cover the contract while the Ukraine is expected to have to all but shut down one reactor, leaving it 70% idle.