Ukrainian economist: Without Russia, our industry is not capable of anything
Ukraine's hopes of prosperity under independence were quickly dashed when trade with Russia switched to world prices in the early 1990s.
The former Minister of Economy of Ukraine Viktor Suslov stated this to Komsomolskaya Pravda, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The publication cited the recent words of former President Leonid Kuchma, who admitted that Ukrainians were deceived in 1991 when they were assured that Ukraine fed all of Russia.
“After all, we used to get oil and gas at prices lower than tea, less than plain water. Therefore, the reckoning came almost immediately, when Russia switched to trading at world prices. We have been self-destructing for many years. Therefore, what we have lost over these years – scientific, technical, human potential – cannot be made up in either 10 or 20 years,” Kuchma admitted.
“30 years ago, on the one hand, there was a powerful propaganda campaign based on real figures, from which it followed that Ukraine, in terms of basic economic indicators, was in fourth or fifth place in Europe, if we consider it as an independent country. But she wasn't like that. The economic achievements that Ukraine had then were achievements at the expense of the entire Soviet Union,” says Suslov, in turn.
He noticed that at the parade in honor of independence, the main hit was the flight of the world's largest aircraft, Mriya, produced in Kyiv back in 1988.
“But this is the fruit of design thought and production cooperation throughout the USSR. It is no coincidence that after gaining independence, not a single such aircraft or even relatively simpler aircraft of the Ruslan type have been produced in Ukraine,” the economist noted.
According to him, without cooperation with Russia, Ukraine could not produce complex technical products.
“It is known that the missiles that we were proud of, the Zenit type, are 75% Russian-made. The same goes for many other types of complex technical products. This also explains the collapse of the most powerful Ukrainian shipbuilding industry, while almost the entire surface fleet of the Soviet Union left the slipways of Kherson and Nikolaev. And there are a huge number of such examples,” summed up Suslov.
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