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Senior Russian diplomat comments on developments in Kiev

MOSCOW, November 30, (ITAR-TASS). Moscow hopes that the people of Ukrainian will clear out the situation in their homeland on their own, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vassily Nebenzya said.

“We do hope the Ukrainian people will grapple with everything themselves,” he said. “The number of supporters and opponents of Euro-integration in that country is roughly the same and one can’t disregard the fact.”

“What’s more important, however, is to be sure that the Ukrainian leadership and rank-and-file citizens figure out the prospects one or the other choice will bring along with it,” Nebenzya said.

“The agreement in Vilnius was not signed and this actually means only one thing, namely, that the Ukrainian government has decided to make a pause and to weigh out everything cautiously,” he said.

Nebenzya also said that the problem of Ukraine and the EU’s Eastern Partnership format might be raised at the EU-Russia summit in January 2014.

“We’re telling our European partners all the time we’d like to cooperate with Europe and we’re not by any means opposed to cooperation between the former Soviet republics and the EU,” he went on. “Moscow wants joint cooperation, not confrontation.”

“We speak about it all the time,” Nebenzya said. “If you look attentively at the statements the Russian representatives have made regarding the course of events /in Ukraine/ and the things our European partners have been saying, everything will be clear to you at once.