“The amount of prepaid gas is enough for two days,” the president told members of the Russian government. “We are ready to strictly observe all our contract obligations but only on the condition of advance payments.”
Kiev hopes that Russia and Ukraine will fully settle all the issues surrounding gas prices before the end of March, Ukrainian Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn said Wednesday.
"In regard to the "summer package" and pricing for the "post-winter package," there will be additional meetings held and I think that in the next two, maximum three weeks, or before April 1, this issue will be completely solved," Demchyshyn told journalists.
In the summer 2014, Russian energy giant Gazprom suspended gas supplies to Ukraine in light of Kiev's debt which stood at in excess of $5 billion. Gazprom resumed the deliveries in December of the same year once Kiev paid off part of its debt and made a prepayment for further gas supplies.
The deliveries were resumed under the so-called "winter package" deal, which requires advance payments from Kiev at the discounted price of $100 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. The agreement expires in April.
On Monday, the energy ministers of Russia and Ukraine and the EU energy chief met in Brussels to discuss the future of Russian gas supplies to Ukraine. After the meeting, the parties decided to continue talks on the "summer package" in late March.
