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An association agreement with EU could have turned Ukraine into a semi-colonial country

Aleksei Pushkov, the head of the Russian State Duma Committee for International Affairs, described the EU policy towards Ukraine as extremely unconvincing.

© ITAR-TASS/Sergei Karpov

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MOSCOW, December 23. /ITAR-TASS/. Aleksei Pushkov, the head of the Russian State Duma Committee for International Affairs, said on Monday that Ukraine could have turned into a semi-colonial country had it signed an association agreement with the European Union.

He described the EU policy towards Ukraine as extremely unconvincing.

“Ukraine was offered a political myth. No one offered it an EU membership, only an association,” Pushkov explained. That, in his words, implied constant financial and economic control over the state of things in the country.

“It was clear that in case of signing the association agreement with the European Union, Ukraine would have turned into its economic semi-colony,” Pushkov emphasized. He added that the European Union had mobilized all its capacities to influence Ukraine and undermine the positions of President Viktor Yanukovich.

Pushkov noted that the European Union had never regarded Yanukovich as its hero. “He has never been a person on whom the European Union could make a stake,” Pushkov said.

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