Ukraine has resumed imports of natural gas from Russia after a over-three-month hiatus in shipments, Ukrainian Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn said here Monday.

"Today, we have started to pump Russian gas and we expect that within the next 20-30 days, we will significantly increase the amount of gas in our storage facilities," Demchyshyn told reporters at a press conference.

Ukraine is planning to buy 2.2 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia in the coming weeks, importing around 114 million cubic meters of fuel per day, he said.

The purchases would allow Kiev to boost the amount of gas in its underground storage facilities to about 18 billion cubic meters from the current 15.8 billion cubic meters, the minister added.

Russian gas supplies to Ukraine were suspended in July as the two countries failed to reach an agreement on payments.

However, last week, Kiev and Moscow signed a deal on resumption of supplies till March 2016, which pegged the price at 227.4 U.S. dollars per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. Endit

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