BRUSSELS: German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Russia on Wednesday that any serious violation of the current cease-fire in east Ukraine — which she described as “fragile” — would prompt Europe to impose further sanctions on Moscow for supporting the separatists.

“So far we’ve got a fragile cease-fire which needs to be stablized,” Merkel told reporters in Brussels.

“But if the Minsk agreement is seriously violated, European leaders and the (European) Commission stand ready to prepare and impose further sanctions,” she said at a news conference with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that he did not want a gas conflict with Ukraine similar to ones that took place in the past, and that Kiev only had enough pre-paid gas from Russia to last two days.

Moscow cut off gas supplies to Kiev from June until December in a dispute over pricing and unpaid bills that marked the third such stoppage in a decade, after price rows in 2006 and 2009.

Previous “gas wars” have led to supply disruptions to Europe, which gets around a third of its gas from Russia, and 40 percent of this via Ukraine.

Spain, France and Portugal are planning a new pipeline through the Pyrenees that will boost supplies to almost 15 billion cubic meters of gas a year, reducing supplies from Russia to about 10 percent.

Gas supplies to Europe have been unaffected by the latest row, but Ukraine’s chaotic finances have left it struggling to keep up with regular pre-payment for its gas from Russia’s state-controlled producer Gazprom.

“There is pre-paid gas for exactly two days, no action has been taken yet,” Putin told a governmental meeting on Wednesday.

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said on Wednesday the crisis in Ukraine is a huge distraction in efforts to reform the country’s economy and its collapse would not be in Russia’s interest.

In an interview on MSNBC, the International Monetary Fund’s managing director said financial support for Kiev depends on how stable the situation is in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russia separatists have been battling the government.

While Ukraine’s current leaders, “are really determined to reform the economy,” Lagarde said, the conflict in eastern part of the country “has been a huge distraction.”

Last month, Lagarde announced Ukraine would receive about $40 billion in funding in the next four years, with nearly half that amount coming from the IMF.