Russia had previously said it was considering tariffs, and not an embargo, against Ukraine, which will leave the Russian-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States’ free trade zone to participate in the EU’s tariff-free market, beginning January 1.
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Peskov also stressed that prospects of lifting anti-Russian sanctions could hardly be linked to progress in the implementation of the Minsk peace agreements as Moscow believes Kiev is not ready to fulfill its commitments under these accords.
Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev said: “The ban on imports of agricultural products [from Ukraine] will only come into force if the Ukrainian government implements the economic part of the Association Agreement with the European Union, which Kiev signed in June past year”.
“It is highly likely that we will have to unilaterally protect our market from the uncontrolled access of goods via Ukraine’scustoms territory, from goods from third countries, first and foremost European Union countries”, Ulyukayev said in an interview on national television.
Putin followed by ordering his navy to cooperate with the French Navy in the eastern Mediterranean, where Russian Federation has a base in the Syrian port of Tartus.
Ukraine estimates that it will lose about $600m in potential revenue next year because of the food embargo, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told a meeting of his cabinet.
“While earlier our dependence was 35%, now it’s at the level of 12.5%”, Yatsenyuk said on Wednesday, according to a statement on his cabinet’s website.
But Stoicescu and Goble say that Putin is mistaken if he believes he will get a pass on Ukraine or be able to slouch on the Minsk agreement because of Russia’s bombing raids in Syria.
Ukraine will thus face the same barriers as the EU.
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Western countries imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014 over its annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
