President Vladimir Putin's instruction to accept payment for Russian gas under European contracts in rubles applied to Gazprom, it does not concern Novatek, spokesman for President Dmitry Peskov said.

According to him, Novatek is a private company, and "there could hardly be a direct order to it.”

Peskov said that the President has not differentiated in any way "what kind of gas is meant - pipeline or LNG but the instruction was to Gazprom," said the Kremlin spokesman.

"This is an international company, where the main owner is the state, so this directive was given to Gazprom. The president didn't say anything about Novatek," he said.

Answering the question of whether Russia will continue supplying gas to the EU if European countries refuse to pay in rubles, the spokesman reminded that "there is an instruction to Gazprom from the president to accept payment in rubles". "Within a week, or more precisely, actually within the remaining four days, Gazprom will have to implement the contracts and develop a transparent, comprehensive system of how this can be done technically and logistically. This information will be communicated to the buyers of Gazprom's products, and then we will see. We proceed from the current order of the President," Peskov summarized.