While Russia uses its gas agreements with Ukraine as a tool of political pressure, Ukraine has no alternative to close cooperation with Russia, said former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.
"We don’t have an alternative to close cooperation with Russia," Kuchma said at a press conference in Dnipropetrovsk on Saturday.
Kuchma criticized the gas deal that Russia and Ukraine concluded while Yulia Tymoshenko served as the Ukrainian prime minister.
"Russia has found a tool that it applies very painfully to Ukraine. This is a colossal political lever to pressure Ukraine," he said.
The recent agreements that Russia and Ukraine concluded in Kharkiv, under which Ukraine enjoys a discount on the price it is currently paying for Russian gas, are not "a charity gesture," Kuchma said.
"There is one request for Russia: make public your gas deals with your partners, such as Ukraine, Germany, Poland and others. If it’s true that, as some say, the gas price for Germany is lower than that for Ukraine – this is what Russia’s love for Ukraine truly means," Kuchma said.
