Putin to visit Kyiv to discuss trade, Eurasian Union

Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin will visit Kyiv on July 27 to partake in commemorations of the 1,025-year anniversary of the christening of the Kyiv-Rus empire, reported the Kommersant-Ukrayina newspaper. Putin will also negotiate a slew of issues that plague Russian-Ukrainian relations, including natural gas transit and prices, a mounting trade war, and Ukraine’s future membership in the Eurasian Union, Kommersant said, citing an anonymous source. In late May, the Ukrainian government signed a cooperation agreement with the Customs Union, which fell far short of Moscow’s hope for Ukrainian membership. Most recently, the Russian government decided to remove quotas of duty-free pipe imports from Ukraine, which is viewed as a retaliatory move following the Ukrainian government’s decision to apply auto import duties in April.

Zenon Zawada: Under the theme of Russian and Ukrainian unity that stems from a common heritage in the Kyiv-Rus empire, Putin is using among the last available windows to convince President Viktor Yanukovych not to pursue the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement. Signing the pact in late November in Vilnius would shut the door to Ukraine joining the Eurasian Union that will be launched in 2015. Yanukovych has proven himself to be an extremely pragmatic politician, concerned primarily with the business interests of his family and close associates. In our view, Putin’s best chance to shut the door to the Association Agreement lies in giving Yanukovych a personal stake in Russian-Ukrainian economic projects, such as gas transit. That such attempts have already occurred are under already suspicion, given that few details have emerged on gas talks between Putin and Yanukovych from their last meeting. But we don’t think Yanukovych would be successful in getting the Ukrainian public to accept his plans to expand his family business empire at the expense of Ukraine’s geopolitical future.