Reacties Oekraïne en EU op Russische bedreiging (en)

KIEV - Leading EU personalities and Ukrainian politicians have made light of Russia's latest threat against Ukraine if it signs an EU pact.

Speaking at a conference in Yalta, Ukraine, at the weekend, Sergei Glazyev, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin i said Russia will economically ruin Ukraine if it takes the EU path.

Amid jeers from some delegates in the audience, he said Russia will impose new trade tariffs on Ukrainian goods, worth up to €35 billion, leading it to default on its sovereign debt.

"We don't want to use any kind of blackmail … But legally, signing this agreement about association with the EU, the Ukrainian government violates the treaty on strategic partnership and friendship with Russia," he noted.

"Who will pay for Ukraine's default, which will become inevitable? … Would Europe take responsibility for that?" he added.

Russia in recent months already banned Ukraine's top chocolate brand, Roshen, on phytosanitary grounds.

It also imposed new customs checks on Ukrainian trucks in August causing a temporary standstill in trade.

The moves come ahead of an EU summit with former Soviet countries in Vilnius in November at which the EU and Ukraine aim to sign a political association and free trade deal.

For her part, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite i told the Yalta meeting: "Ukraine is too big, too strong and too important to allow others to decide its fate. It is the decision of Ukraine to be with the European Union or not."

Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski described Russia's tactics as a "19th-century mode of operating towards neighbours."

He added in a quip on Russia's ban on Roshen that if Ukraine signs the EU pact: "I undertake to eat more Ukrainian chocolate."

Ukrainian trade minister, Petro Poroshenko, who owns the Roshen firm, noted that the Russian threats are being counterproductive.

"For the first time in our history more than 50 percent of people support European integration, and less than 30 percent of the people support closer ties with Russia … Thank you very much for that Mr Glazyev," he said.

Viktor Pinchuk, one of Ukraine's top oligarchs, told Reuters that Russia's tactics are "totally stupid."

Moscow aside, the EU delegates also warned that unless Ukraine frees jailed former PM Yulia Tymoshenko - who has spent more than two years in custody after a show trial - the EU-Ukraine pact could still fall by the wayside.

"The request from the European Union on Tymoshenko's case is still on the table and, without a solution, I do not see a possibility for the signature," Grybauskaite said.

Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former Polish president who has, as part of an EU parliament mission, over the past year tried to negotiate Tymoshenko's release, added: "She is ill. She needs surgery. She needs therapy and rehabilitation."

But Yanukovych himself refused to budge.

He said: "We are trying, and are seeking even today, to find a way of approaching this very difficult question relating to Tymoshenko."

He noted: "At the moment, we have not yet said either 'Yes' or 'No' [to her release]."

He also hinted she might be able to go free if she admits being guilty of abuse of office when she was PM and asks for a pardon. "Only the court can give an answer or [there can be] a voluntary decision by Tymoshenko," the Ukrainian leader said.

Speaking to EUobsever in Kiev after the Yalta event, EU diplomats said Ukraine has fulfilled almost all other conditions for signing the EU pact in November.

The leading idea on what to do about Tymoshenko is to free her to seek medical treatment in Germany.

But one EU contact noted that unless Ukraine also drops the legal cases against her: "She will never accept these conditions. It would mean she could never go back to Ukraine because she would risk spending years in prison. It would be the end of her political career."

Another EU source said even if the deal is signed in Vilnius, there is a danger Ukraine will not implement it because its oligarchs are making a fortune out of the status quo, with Ukraine half-way between the EU and Russia.

Tymoshenko herself in an emotional appeal to the Yalta event pleaded for the EU to go ahead with the pact.

She also warned, however: "Authoritarianism, disrespect to the rule of law and human rights, and poor economic governance will not disappear by default only because the agreement is signed."