Russia remains Ukraine’s biggest trade partner

Ukraine and the European Union are weeks away from signing the Association Agreement. This historic event will not interrupt current efforts by the Cabinet to deepen Ukraine’s strategic partnership with Russia.

Prime Minister Mykola Azarov will be in Kaluga Russia on Oct. 15 to preside over a meeting of the Ukrainian-Russian intergovernmental committee on economic cooperation. The scheduled event is devoted to discussions about the partnership between the two countries in nuclear engineering, aviation and the space industry. Azarov’s Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev will be present, the Information-analytical Bulletin of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine reads.

«Of course, I place great hopes on here this next meeting with the head of the Russian government and with the leadership of the Russian government. We expect that the agreements that we initialed more than three years ago — with then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Sochi — will finally be implemented, Azarov said in a interview with the Russia 24 TV channel.

At the meeting in Kaluga, the parties will discuss the development and mass production line aircraft AN designed by Ukrainian specialists, as well as joint projects for the construction of plants for the processing and production of nuclear power general facilities.

It is expected that the ambitious project will be developed for the resumption of coproduction of serial transport aircraft An-124 Ruslan. Azarov and Medvedev are expected to sign the founding documents for creating the joint venture. The groundwork for the deal was worked out at the end of August when a Ukrainian government delegation visited the International Aviation and Space Salon MAKS- 2013 in Zhukovsky. They agreed there with Russian counterparts on the latest technical details of future agreements.

The joint production of An-124 will be a large long-term project between Russia and 

Ukraine in the field of aviation and create incentives for further development of mutually beneficial Russian-Ukrainian cooperation.

Ukraine’s government considers enhancing economic relations with Russia to be a priority along with improving trade ties. The countries should strengthen cooperation because Ukraine remains dependant on Russia in key industries. Russian companies in the energy, transport and aviation sectors, on the other hand, depend on Ukraine.