Vladimir Putin was unable to corrupt the Moldovan administration to make it not sign the Association Agreement with the European Union, while former President of Ukraine Victor Yanukovych profited from the situation and raised the stake, well-known Ukrainian journalist Vitaly Portniko said in the program “Moldova live” on the public TV channel Moldova 1, IPN reports.
Portnikov considers that Moscow’s failure in the case of Moldova is due to the fact that the government coalition in Chisinau consists of several parties and the powers of the head of state are limited. “You were lucky not to have then a President with the possibilities of Vladimir Voronin,” he stated.
According to the journalist, the scandalous leaving of Yanukovych suited Putin. “The former head of state enjoyed considerable support in eastern Ukraine. If Yanukovych had resisted the temptation and signed the Association Agreement with the EU, there would have been no armed conflict in Ukraine,” he said.
Portnikov noted that Putin is not the author of Russia’s expansion plans. They were devised by the Russian imperialist system in August 1991, while Putin is a trustworthy continuator and implementer of this policy. “In reality, Russia never reocgnzied the independence of Ukraine and Moldova and considered them its territories, exercising influence on them by different methods. The separatist Transnistrian region was created with the aim of exerting this influence as nobody hindered former President Boris Yeltsin from withdrawing the army from Transnistria after a relevant accord was signed,” said the journalist.
Portnikov considers that Russia, which does not consider Ukraine and Moldova as states, until recently controlled its territories and was calm, but when these countries decided to associate themselves with the EU, Moscow became worried as it felt that it was losing these territories.
Vladimir Portnikov is known for his editorials in the mass media in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Poland Latvia and Estonia. Since 2012, he has managed the Ukrainian independent TV channel TVi. He is the editorialist of the most popular Russian-language newspaper in Israel “Vesti”.
