Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia provided considerable financial resources for subsidizing the Ukrainian economy in the past few years.
“During the past four years Russia has been subsidizing Ukraine’s
economy by offering slashed natural gas prices worth 35.4 billion US
dollars. In addition, in December 2013, Russia granted Ukraine a loan of
3 billion US dollars,” Putin said in his letter to the leaders of the
European countries receiving Russian gas through Ukraine.
The document contains a list of discounts for gas that Russia granted Ukraine.
“Beginning with 2009, the sum total of these discounts stands at 17
billion US dollars. To this, we should add another 18.4 billion US
dollars incurred by the Ukrainian side as a minimal take-or-pay fine,”
the letter says.
“These very significant sums were directed towards maintaining
stability and creditability of the Ukrainian economy and preservation of
jobs. No other country provided such support except Russia,” the letter
says.
Putin’s letter was sent to the leaders of Moldova, Romania, Turkey,
Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Macedonia, the Czech Republic, France,
Germany, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria, Austria, and
Italy.
