At the 4th annual Yalta European Strategy (YES) forum recently held in the Crimean resort, European politics used the forum for holding talks with President Viktor Yanukovych, according to KW.
All attempts have failed to result in any agreements being reached, however. The forum was also marked by a strengthening of the Russian vector with the attendance of an imposing delegation from Moscow, KW observed in an article.
“Yanukovych seemingly did not hear what we had to say and kept talking about what interests him,” one of the interlocutors with the head of state, who requested anonymity, noted after the meeting. Yanukovych’s address to the public was not dedicated to European integration. The president read a speech about the role of Ukraine in the world as a whole and when listing the directions of the country’s economic integration, he first mentioned cooperation with the Customs Union and examining possible ways of collaboration and acceptable forms of integration.
Meanwhile, the forum was also marked by a strengthening of the Russian vector with the attendance of an imposing delegation from Moscow. The 4th YES forum will be remembered for the arrival of an impressive delegation from Russia headed by Vice Premier Arkadiy Dvorkovych. Noteworthy, not a single Russian official attended the forum in 2011 due to another crisis in the relations between Kyiv and Moscow. For the first time a separate panel dedicated to the situation in Russia attended the forum, but the main theme was Ukraine’s choice between the eastern and western vectors of integration.
Dvorkovych reiterated the position of the Russian leadership that Moscow is prepared to materially support Kyiv if it agrees to join the Customs Union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. “Membership in the union will give certain advantages in the price of gas. We admit that Gazprom will lose billions of dollars,” the Russian vice premier said.
