Gas supplies to resume when monitors in place: Gazprom chief

"Once the monitors are deployed and they have access, we will immediately resume gas supplies," Miller told journalists at the European Parliament in Brussels.

He said that he had given European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso a "protocol" for deploying the monitors at a meeting and hoped that it would be "examined quickly and adopted".

European Union officials started critical talks on Thursday with feuding Russian and Ukrainian gas executives to work out a way to send monitors to ensure that gas flows back into trans-European pipelines.

International observers will check how much gas is being piped from Russia to Ukraine -- a major transit route for supplies in Europe -- at a pumping station "several hundred kilometers" from their common border.

The EUs Czech presidency expressed cautious optimism that a solution would be found, as countries across Europe faced heating cutbacks in the midst of bitter weather over the pricing dispute.

Russia is the world’s biggest natural gas producer and provides about one-quarter of the gas used in the European Union, or about 40 percent of the gas the bloc imports. About 80 percent of those imports pass though Ukraine.

Russia cut off all supplies for Ukraine's domestic market on Jan. 1 and then halted all supplies to the country, even those intended for Europe, on Wednesday.

Moscow claims Ukraine has been siphoning off gas meant for Europe.