Analyst: Russia not to review gas contracts with Ukraine under President Putin

Political experts think that Russia will not revise gas contracts with Ukraine even after Vladimir Putin’s inauguration as Russian president, and they do not exclude that Moscow will make Kyiv sign other one-sided agreements. "Moral, political and diplomatic support for [former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia] Tymoshenko [from Russia] is actually a signal that nobody will simply review gas agreements," Director of Ukraine’s Institute of Global Strategies Vadym Karasiov said at a press conference in Kyiv on May 7.

A political scientist, Head of the Ukrainian Barometer Sociological Service Viktor Nebozhenko, in turn, said that Russia would continue to try to lure Ukraine into the Customs Union.

"We will face the Kharkiv-2 scenario - when our politicians [the president, prime minister and key ministers] will be gathered, boarded on a plane and given an alternative: either Smolensk-2 or Kharkiv-2. And then we will suddenly be told that a humiliating package of one-sided agreements has been signed, which will serve as compensation for Ukraine's temporary absence in the Customs Union," he said.