The signing of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union will cool relations between Kyiv and Moscow, and Russia may also impose trade sanctions against Ukrainian enterprises.

Executive Director of the Bleyzer Foundation Oleg Ustenko said this during a round table meeting in Kyiv on Wednesday.

"If the agreement [with the EU] is signed, Russia may restrict trade with Ukraine. Moscow will try to drive out Ukrainian commodity producers and more actively introduce import substitution programs. Ukraine, in particular, will lose a huge share on the market for engineering products," the expert said.

Director of the Penta Center for Political Studies Volodymyr Fesenko, in turn, said that a cooling of relations with Russia is inevitable if Ukraine signs the Association Agreement with the EU, but the scale of possible economic sanctions remains in question.

"They [the sanctions] cannot be very significant, because it will also be disadvantageous to the Russian economy," he said.

According to Fesenko, the rejection of the agreement with the EU will help Ukraine intensify talks with Russia on its participation in the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union.

As reported, on May 31, 2013, Ukraine and the Eurasian Economic Commission (a supranational regulatory body of the Customs Union) signed a memorandum on deepening cooperation, which will help Kyiv participate in the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan without official observer status. Ukraine is not planning to join the Customs Union, but thanks to the memorandum it hopes to preserve the volume of trade with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

As reported, Ukraine hopes to sign the Association Agreement with the EU this autumn, but to do so Kyiv should fulfill a number of requirements put forward by the EU.



Ukrinform