Arseniy Yatseniuk, the chairman of the Batkivschyna party's political council and leader of its parliamentary faction, has suggested that the recent trade frictions between Russia and Ukraine have been politically motivated.
“This is not a trade war but a political one. The matter is about the new geopolitical structure of the world, in which Russia has decided for some reason that it can be the architect of a new Berlin wall. And, according to Russia’s design, this wall should appear at the border between Ukraine and the European Union,” Yatseniuk told journalists in reply to a question from Interfax-Ukraine at the Ukrainian World Congress of in Lviv on Wednesday.
“What new has happened in our relations with Russia? Nothing. Is it really different from what happened with gas in 2006? No. Perhaps it’s somewhat different from the ban on supplies of Ukrainian meat and dairy products in 2006? No. But now they have played the last card by banning all Ukrainian exports,” he said.
Yatseniuk insisted that signing an association agreement with the EU, diversifying markets, and leaving the Russian market would be the right way out of this situation. “We have cut our consumption of Russian gas by two thirds, and if we keep on working in this direction, Ukraine may shed its energy dependence on Russia,” he said.
Russia earlier applied the same approach toward the Baltic countries to prevent them from joining NATO and the EU, Yatseniuk said. “They [the Baltic countries] went through hardships, but they withstood them, diversified themselves and reached their goal. And we also must endure hardships,” he said.
