LUXEMBOURG -- Ukraine needs $4 billion in credits to buy Russian gas for its underground storage areas and hopes to raise the funds through European banks, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said Tuesday.

"We are talking about $4 billion," Tymoshenko told a news conference after meeting European Union officials in Luxembourg.

"We are today working on the idea of borrowing these credit resources in European banks, and the European side is favoring this as well as the Russian side."

She said she believed that Naftogaz "is going to be able to have the credit resources necessary in order to do this operation."

Tymoshenko and President Viktor Yushchenko have been at odds on how to finance state energy company Naftogaz, one of a long list of issues pitting the two former allies from the pro-Western "Orange Revolution" against each other.

Yushchenko accuses Tymoshenko's government of pursuing policies that will bankrupt Naftogaz, including the use of credits to purchase imports of Russian gas. He said company credits to be repaid totaled 74 billion hryvnas ($9.7 billion) compared to 56 billion hryvnas at the start of the year.

Tymoshenko says she is making every effort to make Naftogaz a viable company and has promised prompt payment for supplies to prevent any repetition of January's standoff with Gazprom.