Ukraine seals EU deal
Brussels, June 27: Ukraines new leader today signed a landmark EU pact that drew immediate threats of retaliation by Russia in its standoff over the ex-Soviet countrys future with the West.
President Petro Poroshenko hailed the Association Agreement – a 1,200-page document defining the political and trade terms under which Kyiv will slip from the Kremlins embrace – as a turning point for a country that staddles a geopolitical fault line between Europe and Russia.
The deal also bursts Russian President Vladimir Putins dream of enlisting Kyiv in a Moscow-led alliance that could rival the European Union and NATO.
The Kremlin immediately vowed to take all the necessary measures against Ukraine.
Yet the pact is just as unpopular in Russified eastern regions that mistrust the new Kyiv leaders and are now witnessing a bloody separatist insurgency being waged on the streets of a dozen industrial cities and towns.
The EU today sealed identical partnership pacts with Georgia and Moldova – two former Soviet nations with equally complex relations with Russia.
Poroshenko said the deal offered Ukraine an absolutely new perspective and the opportunity to modernise.
It is a historic day, the most important day since independence, he declared.
The pacts were signed just hours after the rebels released four unarmed monitors from the Organisation and Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) they had abducted on May 26. Another four European observers and their Ukrainian translator are still being held captive by the gunmen and Putin has personally urged the militias to secure their release. AFP