KYIV. Nov 2 (Interfax) – The Ukrainian government and the national oil and gas provider Naftogaz have basically fulfilled President Viktor Yanukovych’s instruction to significantly reduce the amount of natural gas purchases under a contract that Ukraine concluded with Russia during Yulia Tymoshenko’s premiership in 2009, Deputy Prime Minister Yury Boiko said.

“Naftogaz and the government have basically fulfilled the task set by our president to reduce as much as possible the purchases under the contract that was signed by the previous government led by Tymoshenko and caused a lot of trouble to our economy,” Boiko told journalists in the Kyiv region on Saturday.

Ukraine is to buy only 11 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia in 2013, down from 40 billion cubic meters only three years ago, he said.

“We have reduced the purchases under this contract,” he said.

“As concerns the information from our Russian counterparts (regarding a debt that Ukraine owes to Russia on gas purchases), I can say only that there are some problems with payments for gas by our housing and utilities companies. The debt is very big, and we hope the utilities companies will improve and reduce it in the near future,” he said.

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