MOSCOW, Aug. 12 - Ukraine has unexpectedly started increasing purchases of gas from Russia, the Fuel and Energy Dispatch Center (TsDU TEK) said on Friday.

Since the start of August, Ukraine has purchased an average of 60 million cubic meters of gas a day. However, starting from August 8, imports increased to 89 mcm a day and came to 97.3 mcm of gas on August 10.

Ukraine substantially boosted gas purchases in June, when the average daily import came to 128 mcm. The average daily import decreased to 56.7 mcm of gas in July. This figure fluctuated throughout the whole of July.