"A total of $800 million was paid from the reserve funds [of Ukraine's National Bank] and more than $200 million was transferred from Naftogaz profits, and a part of the debt was restructured for January-February," Yushchenko said. "So the issue has been resolved for today."
Yushchenko expressed the hope that a contract for gas supplies to Ukraine in 2009 would be signed in the near future.
Gazprom has not commented on the Ukrainian president's announcement.
A Gazprom spokesman said earlier Tuesday that the company would continue talks on Wednesday with the Ukrainian national energy company Naftogaz on natural gas supplies and Ukraine's debt settlement.
"Oleh Dubyna [the head of Naftogaz] arrives tomorrow for a day or two," Sergei Kupriyanov said.
Moscow has warned Kiev that it will cut off gas supplies in the new year if Ukraine fails to repay its gas debt, and there are concerns that the transit of Russian gas to European customers via Ukraine could be affected.
Ukraine has so far repaid only $1 billion out of its $2.4 billion debt for gas supplied in September, October and November. With December's supplies taken into account, Ukraine's gas debt was estimated by Swiss gas trader RosUkrEnergo at $3.2 billion.
