REUTERS

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has said the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on Friday officially notified the Russian side of the non-extension of the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation signed on May 31, 1997, which is expiring on March 31, 2019.

"Today, as we said, we sent the relevant note to Russia," Klimkin told journalists on Friday, an UNIAN correspondent reports.

Read alsoPoroshenko's decree on non-extension of Treaty of Friendship with Russia officially published

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"This is a very important point since all violations by the Russian Federation are very detailed in this note. I emphasize once again, of all the essential provisions of this treaty. This concerns both Russia's armed aggression against Ukraine, Russia's hybrid aggression against Ukraine, as well as economic pressure. And of course, violations of the rights of citizens of Ukraine," Klimkin said.

"This treaty is fundamentally violated by Russia and therefore cannot be prolonged," he added.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Poroshenko on September 17 signed a decree to enact the NSDC's decision not to prolong the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation.

Under Article 24 of the Law on International Treaties of Ukraine, the president will also submit a relevant bill to parliament.

Ukrainian presidential representative in parliament Iryna Lutsenko said Ukraine's Foreign Ministry would send a letter to the Russian side by September 30 to notify of the non-extension of the Treaty, which is expiring on March 31, 2019.

UNIAN memo. The Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation was signed by the then Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and his Russian counterpart Boris Yeltsin on May 31, 1997. The document fixed the principle of strategic partnership, the recognition of the inviolability of existing borders, respect for territorial integrity and mutual commitment not to use its territory to harm the security of each other. It automatically renews on each 10th anniversary of its signing, unless one party advises the other of its intention to end the treaty. After Russia annexed Crimea and unleashed war in Donbas in 2014, there have been repeat appeals in Ukraine to sever the treaty.