KIEV, July 27 (Itar-Tass) - Russia’s President Vladimir Putin arrived in Kiev to participate in the celebration of the 1025th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus.
The president will join the festive praying at Kiev’s Vladimir Hill and will visit the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, where he will present Russian state awards to hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for their big input in development of friendly relations between the peoples and for development of the spiritual traditions.
“During the visit, Putin will have negotiations with Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovich, where they will discuss bilateral cooperation, first of all in the trade, economic, cultural and humanitarian spheres, and will exchange views on the integration cooperation in Eurasia,” the Kremlin’s press service said.
“They will continue the dialogue on Ukraine’s joining the integration processes in Eurasia - the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan and the Common Economic Space. Experts say if Ukraine joins the CES, its economy may have additional GDP growth of between one and 6.5 percent.”
The presidential press service reports another traditional topic at the negotiations between Putin and Yanukovich would be the energy.
“The parties continue the work on development of the legal base in the gas sector. They will discuss cooperation in the nuclear energy. Russia is a leading supplier of nuclear fuel to Ukraine’s nuclear power plants. The issue to discuss is also the joint construction of the third and fourth energy blocks of the Khmelnitskaya nuclear power plant.”
On July 28, president of Russia and Ukraine’s president will come to Sevastopol to participate in the celebration of the Russian Navy’s Day.
Since 2000, Vladimir Putin has made 28 visits to Ukraine, where 23 during his presidency and five during his premiership. His latest visit to Yalta was exactly a year ago.