MOSCOW, April 03. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukrainian presidential candidate Petro Poroshenko called on the German authorities to boycott deliveries of the Russian natural gas in the wake of Russian energy giant Gazprom’s announcement of upping gas prices for Ukraine.

In an interview with Die Bild daily, Poroshenko, the founder of Roshen Confectionery Corporation, one of the biggest confectionery producers in the world, said the boycott of the Russian gas supplies would economically bring “Russia down on its knees.”

The Ukrainian tycoon said it would be a real sanction in regard to Russia, while Germany and the rest of Europe could use alternative energy sources.

Russian energy giant Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said at a meeting with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday that the price of the Russian natural gas for Ukraine had been set at $485 per 1,000 cubic meters as of April 2014. He also said that with account for gas supplies in March, Ukraine’s debt already exceeded $2.2 billion.

Earlier in the week Miller said Ukraine’s Naftogaz debt stood at $1.7 billion. Proceeding from the gas price of $268.5 per 1,000 cubic meters in the first quarter of 2014, Naftogaz imported in March some 1.956 billion cubic meters worth about $500 million.

The price for Russian gas for Ukraine in the second quarter was set at $385.5 per 1,000 cubic meters. Gazprom said earlier that the price rose due to the return to earlier contract agreements, as Ukraine failed to fulfil its commitments under an additional agreement concluded in December 2013, which obliged the country to pay for supplied volumes of Russian gas in time.

On April 2, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on denunciation of the Kharkov Accords with Ukraine, which were struck in 2010 and stipulated that Russia’s lease of naval facilities in Crimea [then part of Ukraine] would be extended by 25 years beyond 2017 - until 2042.

The Kharkov deals envisioned a discount of $100 per 1,000 cubic meters on Russian gas for Kiev. Now that the accords have been denounced due to Crimea’s accession to the Russian Federation, the discount will no longer be applied, raising the gas price by another $100 to $485.5 per 1,000 cubic meters.

From the second quarter, Gazprom will have to pay 10% more for gas transit to European consumers via Ukraine. Gazprom has pledged to fulfil its commitments in full.