Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday for the first time over two years of work on the supreme state post will arrive in Ukraine. He will hold a meeting with his Ukrainian colleague Viktor Yanukovich in Kharkov.
The most sensitive issues on the agenda are the supplies of Russian natural gas to Ukraine and the conditions of the functioning of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the Ukrainian territory. “It is planned to consider interaction problems in the gas sphere – in the context of the supply of Ukraine with Russian gas and its transit to European consumers. Another important issue for both sides is the creation of conditions for the functioning of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the Ukrainian territory,” the press service of the Russian head of state told Itar-Tass.
“Kharkov is the right choice, because gas is important, but besides gas there is also industrial cooperation and it is important to show its significance to the heads of enterprises and regions,” Russian presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko told journalists.
Kremlin sources noted that in Kharkov it will be already the fifth Russian-Ukrainian summit meeting over the past two months. “Such an intensive political dialogue clearly testifies to the beginning of a qualitatively new stage in the bilateral interstate relations,” the press service stressed.
The Russian president’s trip will begin with visiting the Kharkov Aviation Plant. Then the presidents will have a one-on-one meeting, after which Medvedev and Yanukovich will meet the leaders of border regions of Russia (the Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kursk, Rostov regions, Krasnodar Territory) and Ukraine (the Kharkov, Donetsk, Lugansk, Sumy, Chernigov regions). “The interregional and cross-border ties make a weighty contribution to the expansion of the bilateral economic and humanitarian cooperation. Thus, the share of 11 Russian regions in the total volume of trade turnover with Ukraine in 2009 reached 77 percent. The meeting participants will discuss ways of expanding the geography of the interregional ties and their further strengthening,” the Kremlin said.