Political expert: the first meeting between Poroshenko and Putin may be disastrous

Putin will pressure Poroshenko and their first official meeting may end up a disaster. Kyiv. August 19. UNN. The Minsk meeting between the heads of Ukraine, the EU and the Eurasian Three will not bring success to President Petro Poroshenko, says political expert Viktor Nebozhenko to UNN. “The useless Berlin consultations between the Ministers of Foreign Affairs just ended, and we already have news about the visit of the German Chancellor to Kyiv on August 23 and the high-level meeting on August 26 in Minsk. Of course, the problem is not that the ministers failed to do their jobs, and the leaders of the countries decided to speak directly. Everyone was and still is unsure of the results. There is a chaotic search for the optimal format and talk of the same things,” said V. Nebozhenko. To his mind, the topic regarding the execution of the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement is a cover for the meeting which will include the main hidden issue: what Putin is trying to achieve in Ukraine. “Putin is interested in taking away the most valuable thing – Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, strategic “Yuzhmash” objects and Zaporizhya. First and foremost, he needs a missile complex without which Russia would lose in the competition against the US,” noted the political expert. “Note the absence of the US in all consultations and meetings. They are not interested in such actions on part of Russia, and Europe, first of foremost, its leader, Germany, wants compromise,” noted the expert. He explained that the arrival of Chancellor Merkel to Kyiv is understandable – it is the accordance of positions before the meeting with Putin. “We should understand that Germany is playing its own game. It baited Russia with South Stream, having made itself into a monopolist and forced Russians to lower gas prices by 30%. Germany may be alright with the Berlin-Moscow axis where one is a leading industrial and post-industrial country and the other is the raw material additive being lead,” said the expert. “Let us not overestimate Poroshenko’s foreign policy skills. He is still learning and considers himself talented. However, the meeting in Minsk may follow Putin’s scenario. I am afraid it will be a partial meeting. While before Putin convinced Yanukovych not to sign the association agreement, now he will offer new, bigger conditions,” proposed V. Nebozhenko. According to the political expert, today Poroshenko is not ready to Putin yet. “Russia’s participation in Ukraine’s strategic industries is the main subject of the Minsk meeting. However President Poroshenko acts, he is unlikely to receive positive dividends from this first official meeting with the Russian leader,” concluded V. Nebozhenko. As is known, today, on August 19, the press service of the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko accounted that a meeting between representatives of Ukraine, the EU and the Customs Union will take place on August 26 in Minsk. The Russian delegation will be led by Russian President Vladimir Putin. As such, it will be the first meeting between Putin andPoroshenko since the beginning of the armed conflict in the east of Ukraine.

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  Source: UNN Translated by Mariya Shcherbinina