Armenia has begun making payments for Russian gas in rubles, Economy Minister Vahan Kerobyan said, Russian media reported.

Kerobyan said that the pricing is in dollars, but the payment is made in rubles.

"As far as I know, the last few payments were exactly in rubles, but at the appropriate rate," he said.

This was confirmed by Sergey Kupriyanov, a representative of Russian state energy giant Gazprom, who noted that the contract with Yerevan has allowed paying for gas in rubles for several years.

Under the contract, Armenia receives gas at a price of $165 per thousand cubic meters. "Gazprom is the only supplier of gas to the country, which is sold to consumers.

Earlier Kerobyan stated that buying gas for rubles is a positive development for Armenia.

On March 23, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed to accept payments for Russian natural gas supplied to Europe in rubles.

Most of the EU countries opposed this decision, in particular Lithuania decided to completely refuse Russian energy resources.

According to experts, as a result of the principled position of the countries, by the end of this year the volume of Russian gas sales will drop by at least 35 percent compared to the previous period.