FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Poroshenko Signs Termination of Ukraine-Russia Friendship Treaty
Dec. 11, 2018 (EIRNS)—Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed off on the termination, yesterday, of the 1997 Treaty of Friendship between Ukraine and Russia, to take effect on April 1, 2019. Judging from the statements Poroshenko made, the Kiev regime appears to be intent on cutting off entirely Ukraine’s long, complex relationship with Russia in favor of colonialism by the European Union and NATO.
“We must regard the non-prolongation of our Agreement with Russia not as an episode but as part of our strategy towards the final breakup with our colonial past and re-orientation towards Europe,”
he said, according to Interfax Ukraine.
“The other components of this strategy are as follows: a visa-free regime, an agreement on the association with the EU, the Tomos [a Church decree] on the creation of an independent autocephalous Church in Ukraine, the discontinuance of our membership of the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States], the mentioning of our aspirations to join the EU and NATO in the Ukrainian Constitution, the creation of a professional Ukrainian army, the support of the Ukrainian language, our own history, and the strengthening of our national identity.”
TASS reports that Poroshenko has also ordered a complete inventory of agreements between Kiev and Moscow, apparently with the aim of eventually terminating all of them. “We will continue to assess the utility of those agreements,” Poroshenko said. He also instructed the government to take immediate steps to establish an inter-agency coordination body “to work on a comprehensive claim concerning the damage caused by Russia’s military aggression.”
Alexei Chesnakov, Director of the Russian Center for Current Policy, told TASS that by terminating the friendship treaty, the Kiev regime has, in effect, ended all agreements between the two countries signed on the basis of that treaty, including the agreement on the Sea of Azov as the internal sea of two countries.
“The matter is that the 1997 Treaty on Friendship, which is being terminated by Ukraine, is the basis of the entire system of treaties and agreements between Moscow and Kiev, and this termination destroys that system,”
Chesnakov stressed. “If there is no Treaty on Friendship, there will be no Agreement on the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait. That’s the legal and political logic and cause-and-effect link,” he said. “Ukraine is thus stripping itself of the right to freedom of navigation in that region.”
