Russia will not help Ukraine, now it’s the West’s turn – Lavrov
Moscow - Kyiv, December 25 (PolitNavigator, Mikhail Stamm) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview "Kommersant"that Russia is not going to participate in the donor conference on Ukraine, which the European Commission plans to hold in 2015. We have already invested $33-34 billion in Ukraine in the form of subventions and benefits, now it’s the West’s turn, especially since it supported the coup in Ukraine, the minister says.
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“President Vladimir Putin, at meetings in Normandy in early June and in Milan in mid-October, placed special emphasis on the fact that Ukraine needs help, that we have already overcome our part of the path and have gone far from all our Western colleagues, and are also ready to do something additionally,” Lavrov recalled. - Since then, we have taken many additional steps: we agreed on a discount on gas, did not insist on payment of the first three-billion tranche, which was issued to the government of Viktor Yanukovych - our banks do not insist, although they already have a contractual right to repay some penalties sanctions from their debtors in Ukraine.”
“We have already done a lot of things, now it’s the turn of the West, which, in my opinion, has not yet realized that it is indecent to delay so much in making decisions that will allow Ukraine to go through the winter relatively calmly,” continues the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry. – If our Western partners actively supported what happened in Ukraine in February - essentially a coup d'etat - and convince us that we need to join forces, then you are welcome. It’s just that we are the only ones making efforts so far for Ukraine to resolve its most difficult economic issues.”
According to Lavrov, “this is being discussed directly, including between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko. Our economies and industries are very closely intertwined; energy interaction has always been very close. Practical issues arising from this crisis are discussed and decided by presidents, but the West has not yet done anything other than some minor subsidies, grants or loans, or even just export guarantees. So the ball is in their court, and the ball is big.”
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