If the European Union and Ukraine do not sign the Association Agreement in 2013, Moscow will put tougher pressure on Kyiv to make it join the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, a Ukrainian expert has said.
“In case Ukraine does not sign the Association Agreement [with the EU] in 2013, Russia will put extreme pressure [on Ukraine], in order to integrate us with the Customs Union somehow,” President of the Open Policy Analytical Center Ihor Zhdanov said in Kyiv on Tuesday.
Today Ukraine says that it cannot simultaneously create a free trade area with the EU and join the Customs Union, but if Ukraine fails to sign the Association Agreement with the EU in 2013 it will become more vulnerable to becoming a member of the Customs Union, according to the expert.
In turn, Scientific Director at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation Oleksandr Sushko said that Russia is not putting obvious pressure on Ukraine at the moment.
The expert explained this by the fact that “Russia believes that the [EU-Ukraine] Association Agreement will never be signed.”
“As soon as it becomes clear that chances to sign the agreement increase, they will toughen their pressure. And on the contrary, if the agreement is buried it [pressure] will weaken,” Sushko said.
In that case Russia will take the wait-and-see stand, he added.
Sushko assumed that Russia will wait until the presidential election scheduled for 2015 in Ukraine, when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych will seek ways to strengthen his position on the international arena.
