TODAY: Following suggestion from Putin, Eni tries to form consortium to get gas pipelines working again; gas summit to meet tomorrow in Moscow; Putin in Germany, Poland siding with Ukraine.  Gas row boosting public support for Putin at home; US needs Russia, says lawmaker; post-Soviet mortality; Medvedev is ‘the president without a team’.

The Russia-Ukraine gas dispute hits its eleventh day.  In light of another failed attempt at a resolution, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin suggested that European countries suffering from the dispute should form a consortium to purchase gas directly from Russia.  ‘Russia is not ready to take all the risks,’ said Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.  Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is the only leader so far to have backed the plan, but Eni is in the process of trying to do just that, organizing a consortium to provide enough gas to get pipelines and pumping stations working again.  Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has urged EU leaders to attend this weekend’s energy summit in Moscow, but France says there is no need to attend a summit until gas supplies have resumed.