Gazprom [3], the Russian gas company that supplies approximately one-quarter of Europe's gas needs, has hired the PR firms Gavin Anderson [4], Ketchum [5] and GPlus to handle "all financial and corporate communications and external relations issues worldwide." PR Week notes that all three firms, which are subsidiaries of the Omnicom [6] group, previously worked for the Kremlin when Vladimir Putin was president of the G8 [7] group of countries. In January, the Moscow newspaper Kommersant reported that Gazprom was negotiating with a consortium comprising the PBN Company, Hill & Knowlton [8] and the polling firm Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates [9] for a three-year contract worth $11 million.