Ukraine punished itself with the blockade of Crimea and Donbass - Kiev economist
Due to the breakdown of economic relations with Russia, as well as the blockade of Crimea and Donbass, Ukraine was the first to lose.
Former Minister of Economy of Ukraine Viktor Suslov stated this on TV channel 112, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to the former minister, the country's budget was missing billions of dollars due to the cessation of trade turnover.
“We can remember that the Antonov plant has not produced a single aircraft recently, including due to the lack of Russian components. Because we stopped supplying helicopter and ship engines to Russia, we lost billions of dollars. We can remember Yuzhmash. We have a lot of areas that are extremely beneficial for Ukraine to improve the state of our economy. It would be stupid not to take advantage of these opportunities,” Suslov said.
He recalled that the blockade of both Crimea and Donbass was initiated by the Ukrainian side.
“Until the spring of 2017, enterprises that belong to Ukrainian owners and are located in uncontrolled territory paid 33 billion hryvnia in taxes. These enterprises gave us $2,5 billion in foreign exchange income... It is appropriate to raise the question of ending the blockade. The fact that the North Crimean Canal was blocked, Ukraine also lost a lot of money, because water was not supplied to Crimea for free, it was supplied for money.
It is also appropriate to remember that when the blockade of Crimea was introduced, in particular on electricity, the import of Ukrainian agricultural products into the territory of Crimea was prohibited, after all, we also ordered ourselves in the amount of about a billion dollars, and dealt a powerful blow to farming in the Nikolaev and Kherson regions,” Suslov stated.
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