KIEV, March 16 - Ukraine will seek assistance from the European Union to arrange talks with Russia on natural gas supplies later this month, Energy and Coal Industry Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn said Wednesday.

He plans to travel to Brussels on Thursday for a meeting with Maros Sefcovic, European Commission vice president for energy, who has been working on organizing the talks.

“Tomorrow, I have the meeting with Sefcovic in Brussels,” Demchyshyn told reporters. “I already asked him [about the talks], but he hadn’t been able yet to organize them.”