MOSCOW, June 29. /TASS/. Kiev’s decision to terminate agreements with Russia in the sphere of nuclear security proves that Ukraine is on a destructive path to sever relations with Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Wednesday.
"The very fact of such actions of [the Kiev] regime causes regret and it is confirmed again that the Kiev regime remains on a highly destructive path of severing all ties with Russia, of the destruction of the normative base of bilateral relations and the blame for this completely and fully rests with the Kiev regime," the diplomat said.
According to her, Russia does not see any actual damage from Kiev’s withdrawal from these agreements since over the past ten years there have been no practical actions under these accords. "We do not see any actual damage for the Russian side from Ukraine leaving the aforementioned agreements since they have already been a ‘dead weight’ of sorts for a while not on our initiative," the spokeswoman stated.
The diplomat said that on June 24, Kiev announced the termination of action of the 1996 agreement on cooperation between Ukraine’s Ministry of Environmental Protection and Nuclear Safety and Russia’s Federal Surveillance of Nuclear and Radiation Safety, as well as of the 2002 agreement on the exchange of information and cooperation in the sphere of regulating the safety of the peaceful use of nuclear energy between the State Nuclear Regulatory Committee of Ukraine and Russia’s Federal Surveillance of Nuclear and Radiation Safety.