Moscow's pressure on former Soviet states in eastern Europe -- Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova -- is piling further pressure on already strained EU-Russia ties, European leaders said Friday.

"We have differences, even a long list of differences" with Russia, said European Council president Herman Van Rompuy at the close of a two-day summit.

Ukrainian authorities on Friday briefly detained and then deported a Georgian journalist covering mass pro-EU demonstrations that have gripped the Ukrainian capital since November.

David Kakulia, a journalist from Georgia's Rustavi 2 television station "was briefly detained by border guards upon arrival in Kiev airport and deported," its director Nika Gvaramia told Agence France Presse.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych Thursday told the West to stay out of his country's political crisis, after top European and U.S. diplomats visited the protests that have raged for a month in central Kiev.

In the first live interview with Ukraine's main television channels since the crisis broke last month, Yanukovych said a bailout deal with Moscow did not contravene Kiev's EU hopes but said Ukraine could still join clauses of a rival Kremlin-led trade bloc.

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said Russia had offered Ukraine a multi-billion dollar bailout package to steer the neighboring "brotherly country" out of economic trouble and not to stem pro-EU protests.

Russia's economic assistance has infuriated the Ukrainian opposition spearheading mass street protests against President Viktor Yanukovych, whom they have accused of selling out to Moscow.

Ukraine has avoided bankruptcy and social collapse thanks to a "historic" deal with Russia for Moscow to buy $15 billion of Ukrainian bonds and slash gas prices, its prime minister said Wednesday.

"What would have awaited Ukraine (without the deal)? The answer is clear -- bankruptcy and social collapse," Prime Minister Mykola Azarov told parliament. "This would have been the New Year's present for the people of Ukraine," he added ironically.

The White House said Tuesday an economic deal between Russia and the Ukraine does not address the concerns of Ukrainian protesters calling for an accord to move closer to the European Union.

The agreement, in which Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to buy $15 billion of Ukrainian bonds and slash its gas bill by a third, "will not address the concerns of those who have gathered in public protest across Ukraine," spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

Ukraine's embattled President Viktor Yanukovych sought Tuesday a multi-billion-dollar lifeline from Russia's Vladimir Putin that could relieve a brewing economic crisis but also stoke huge pro-EU protests roiling Kiev streets.

The ex-Soviet nation of 46 million has been at the heart of a furious diplomatic tug of war since Yanukovych's shock decision last month to ditch a landmark EU partnership agreement and seek closer ties with its traditional master Russia.

European Union foreign ministers on Monday sought to reassure their Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, that a possible partnership deal with Ukraine would not undermine Moscow's interests.

At talks with Lavrov over lunch in Brussels, "we made it perfectly clear that Ukraine, after years of negotiations... should sign" a landmark political and economic deal with the 28-nation bloc, said the EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton.

European Union foreign ministers on Monday reiterated the bloc's willingness to strike a historic partnership deal with Ukraine, but said the ball clearly was in Kiev's court.

"We of course want that Ukraine signs the association agreement, there is still some hope for that," said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle on arriving for talks in Brussels with his 27 EU counterparts.

Nearly 300,000 outraged Ukrainians braved freezing temperatures Sunday to demand closer Western integration after the European Union abruptly suspended historic partnership talks because of the government's continued courtship of Russia.

The ex-Soviet nation of 46 million has been at the heart of a furious diplomatic tug of war since President Viktor Yanukovych's shock decision last month to ditch a landmark EU association agreement and seek closer ties with its traditional masters at the Kremlin.