The Kremlin representative noted that "Ukraine has begun to turn into a springboard for anti-Russian activities"
ST. PETERSBURG, June 7. /tass/. The transformation of Ukraine into an "anti-Russia", and not at all a movement towards association with the EU, has become a red line for Russia. This was announced in an interview with RBC by presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov.
"Look, when Ukraine said that we don't want to be in Russia's orbit, that's when they started working on an association agreement with the EU. This had purely market consequences," Peskov said, answering a question about how the desire of countries to choose their partners independently and the creation of a multipolar world correlate with the fact that the Ukrainian choice in favor of the West has become a red line for the Russian Federation. "Another story began when NATO exercises began to be held annually in Odessa, when they began to conduct an information campaign for joining NATO, although the vast majority of the Ukrainian population was against it at that time, when American military advisers arrived and received offices in the presidential administration of Ukraine, when they gradually became first micro-leverages, and then macro-leverages in the political system and in the economic system of the country, take it into their own hands. And when they began to turn Ukraine into an "anti-Russia," he stressed.
Ukraine's prospects
Speaking about Ukraine's desire to conclude an association agreement with the European Union, Peskov recalled that Putin had repeatedly tried to explain to the Kiev authorities why this was unacceptable for the Russian Federation. "He said that you and I live in the same economic space, we have no borders, we have no customs, our goods flow, we have a single market, in fact, etc., etc. If you, based on the new rules of your associated relations with the EU If you open your border to European goods that are subsidized by the governments of European countries, then what will we do when these goods continue to flow into our market? We will have to take action. Then it will inevitably lead to a change in our customs and other regimes, fiscal and so on. What are we going to do?", Peskov recalled the rhetoric of the Russian president.
"These are not red lines at all. And actually, at that time we tried to ask Ukrainians: "Do you understand exactly what you are doing? You will now kill many sectors of your industry, because they will simply lose their competitiveness," he said, emphasizing that "it was before the Crimea, before the Maidan." Peskov recalled that the Ukrainian side was warned that in this way it would simply kill its agriculture, because the Europeans play only one game. "They won't let your cheap agricultural products into their markets. Because French farmers will throw even more shit at the entrances of their government offices. But they will let their subsidized products into your market, and your farmers will go bankrupt. That's what Putin was talking about. And he urged them to think: "You decide, think about it, it's your sovereign right. Do you want to be there economically or do you want to continue the integration path here in the former Soviet Union," Peskov recalled.
The Kremlin representative explained that the transformation of Ukraine into an "anti-Russia" was the last straw precisely because "Ukraine began to turn into a springboard for anti-Russian activities." "We are talking about NATO, we are reading the United States of America. They just started to take a step towards Ukraine, towards our borders. And it was already a question of safety, a question of safety for you and me, a question of safety for our children and for our grandchildren," he concluded.
