Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has said that Kyiv cannot sign an association agreement with the European Union because of the economic pressure and blackmail by Russia.
Yanukovych said this in a telephone conversation with Lithuanian counterpart Dalia Grybauskaite, an adviser to the Lithuanian president told Baltic News Service on Friday.
“Ukraine has succumbed to economic pressure and blackmail,” Neliupsiene told BNS.
“It has been threatened with restriction of its commodities imports to Russia, in particular that of the companies in eastern Ukraine, where most the country’s industrial enterprises are located, which employ hundreds of thousands of people. It is believed that Ukraine will suffer billions in losses. Such reasons for their decision were voiced by President Yanukovych during a telephone conversation with the president [Grybauskaite) this week.”
“Here, we see unions being made through uncivilized means of pressure, and such unions cannot last long,” the presidential advisor said.
As reported, the Ukrainian government decided on Thursday to take a pause in the preparations to sign the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, which was planned to be done in Vilnius on November 28-29.
The government said this decision was caused by to the necessity to improve considerably trade and economic relations with Russia and the CIS countries.
