MOSCOW, Dec. 25 (Xinhua) — Ukraine has consumed much less Russian gas since mid-December, which may mean it is experiencing cash problems, the head of Russia’s state gas monopoly Gazprom said on Friday.

“We are hearing and seeing that Ukraine is having very serious problems in paying for the Russian gas deliveries for December,” Alexei Miller said on the Vesti-24 television channel.

“We assess the situation with the payment for the December supplies of Russia’s gas as very alarming,” Miller said.

The deadline for Ukraine’s payment for Russian gas has been postponed from Jan. 7 to Jan. 11, 2010, due to the New Year holidays, according to Gazprom.

Earlier this month, the Ukrainian gas giant Naftogaz gave assurances that no fresh gas crisis with Russia was looming as it had been paying for supplies on schedule.

Kiev, which has so far paid 20 percent less than Russian gas consumers in Europe, will start paying the average European price from Jan. 1.

Russia supplies a quarter of EU’s gas needs, with 80 percent of it pumped through Ukrainian pipelines. The energy supplier cut off gas deliveries to Ukraine for nearly two weeks in January, leaving tens of thousands of Europeans without heating gas in the depths of winter.