“We have halted gas payments to Ukraine for gas and are now accumulating money,” Purgin said.
Kiev cut gas deliveries to the DPR and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) on Thursday.
Russia’s gas giant Gazprom said it had begun gas deliveries to both republics, though the LPR said Friday morning it had not received any gas from Ukraine or Russia.
In the end of January, the DPR claimed that Kiev's suspension of supplies to one of its districts had left some 30,000 people without heat. The Ukrainian energy ministry said it did not have any information on the issue.
Despite the ongoing conflict between Kiev and Donbas pro-independent fighters, the region is still heavily dependent on Ukrainian electricity and gas supplies. Supply shortages last year became one of the reasons for the severe humanitarian crisis in the region, prompting Russia to send aid convoys with power generators.
Russia has been providing humanitarian assistance to the war-torn Donbas region since August 2014. Since then, the LPR and DPR have received over 18,000 tons of food, grain, water, clothes, medicines, power generators and building materials.
