President comments on $5bn loan from Russia
President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko believes that the backroom agreements of the Ukrainian government on receiving emergency loans from Russia are inadmissible.
According to an UNIAN correspondent, President’s Press Secretary Iryna Vannikova claimed this to a press conference on Monday, voicing the position of the President about the government’s intent to appeal for the loan from Russia.
I.Vannikova stressed that, in the opinion of the President, “the backroom visit of a Ukrainian governmental delegation to Russia” violated the Ukrainian legislation that regulates the procedure of international talks. She stressed that the President did not confirm directives for the visit, and did not receive any respective documents from the government,
“The Head of State considers inadmissible the situation when strategic issues are solved behind-the-scene, violating the existing legal norms and having blatant traces of corruption”, the Press Secretary said.
She added that the President had information only about the technical task of the negotiations group. He considers intolerable to combine negotiations on Ukraine’s receiving a loan with ratification of the agreement on a “zero variant” and on the destiny of the national gas transporting system.
At the same time, she noted that the “zero variant” means that Russia shoulders all debts of the Soviet Union, while Ukraine refuses to claim any property of the former USSR, including the foreign one.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine appealed for emergency loans from the world`s richest countries to help support its economy, which has been battered by the global financial crisis.
Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine`s premier, said her government had sent letters to the US, Russia, China, Japan and the European Union asking for loans to fill a shortfall in budget revenues for this year. "We have already received a positive response from some countries, including Russia. Russia is ready to sign such loan agreements," Ms Tymoshenko said at the Munich Security Conference at the weekend. She did not clarify how much Kyiv was seeking to borrow, but reports in Ukraine suggested Russia could lend $5bn (?3.9bn, £3.4bn).