By Jaime Ortega.
Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich, having slammed the door to the European Union and the streets of Kiev clamoring to leave the political scene , expected an incentive of Moscow. Vladimir Putin , who met yesterday in Moscow , still craves to incorporate Ukraine into the shopping cart that is driving Russia along with other republics of the former USSR . Yesterday he set to offer a resonant price : to invest 10.900 million Euros in bonds of Ukrainian debt and reduce by one third the price of gas it sells to Ukraine. There are reforms that many Ukrainians ask, to give the country a new international framework . But it may be enough to get of the mud and give Yanukovich oxygen to an economy close on the brink of bankruptcy.
” Given the problems of the Ukrainian economy , the Russian government decided to put a portion of their reserves in Ukrainian bonds,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin , in his meeting with Yanukovich. When the Ukrainian leader decided to stay at the last minute negotiations with Brussels to become part of their free trade area did not seem to consider that the public would rise up in protest occupying the center of the capital, where thousands of people have been for four weeks between barricades protesting .
But the Russian option would incorporate more short-term revenues and less unpopular sacrifices. Putin yesterday pulled his strategy , remembering that the agreement ” is not subject to any condition , or a rise or a fall , or the freezing of social programs , from pensions , scholarships or expenditure ” in clear reference to the conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund to grant a loan to Kiev to replace their battered stocks .
Relationship with Russia
The new money is most urgent for Kiev, but won’t last forever . But the reduction in the gas by almost a third is a luxury Moscow granted only to its allies , which are installed in a dynamic of lower prices that nobody wants to leave .
So Putin , who aspires to go further in its ties with Ukraine , also announced that state-owned companies from Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement to lower gas prices exported to Moscow Kiev. ” Naftogaz Ukraine and Gazprom have signed an amendment allowing Gazprom to sell gas to Ukraine at $ 268.50 per 1,000 cubic meters. As you know, the price is now around $ 400,” he said .
That little bargain was one of the objectives of the Ukrainians, who have important metallurgical industry, consuming constant gas and are approaching the dead of winter.
But Putin will not include Ukraine in their plan until they feel Ukraine’s accession to the Customs Union led by Moscow works, to become a replica of the old European Economic Community which also includes Belarus and Kazakhstan . This step is difficult to turn back too, but the greatest concern to the Ukrainian opposition , whose main link – besides revulsion Yanukovich is its pro – EU stance. Both alliances at the same time are not possible.
The teams of both leaders assured that the matter of the Customs Union would not be raised during the negotiations. “I want to reassure everyone , we have not talked about Ukraine’s accession to the Customs Union ,” Putin went on to say . But there is a foretaste of what could be this commercial brotherhood. Both countries also signed a series of documents that outline a new bilateral relationship. These include an agreement to lift the ” trade barriers ” between the two during the coming year . As he had put himself in the Kremlin Kiev ‘s flirtation with Brussels this year.
