You're reading: Yushchenko: Ukrainian-Russian gas contracts of 2009 should be canceled

Ukraine's third president (2005-2010), Viktor Yushchenko, has said that the gas agreements signed by Ukraine and Russia in 2009 should be canceled.

"It’s necessary to the cancel the agreements," he said during his testimony at the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv, which is considering the gas supply contract case against former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko

Yushchenko also said it was necessary to inform the current authorities about the need to cancel these agreements.

"I am confident that the Moscow agreement will not exist for much longer," Yuschenko said.

The ex-president said he was sure that in any case, there would be "some action" that would lead to the cancellation of the agreement.

The April 2010 Kharkiv agreements were the result of the 2009 gas agreements and seriously affected Ukraine’s national security, Yushchenko said after emerging from the court building.

"Essentially, this agreement betrayed our security policy, it brought someone else’s fleet to our lands," Yushchenko said.

The 2009 gas agreements have enslaved Ukraine. "One should answer the question what a country, which will not live through ten years with this agreement, should do," he said.

Even the gas price of $250 per 1,000 cubic meters was economically unjustified in late 2008, because prices on oil, coal, uranium, gasoil, i.e. the gas price formula components, were rising at the time, he said.

The price increase to $250 per 1,000 cubic meters would not be a tragedy, had there not been an agreement of January 19, 2009, he said.