Ukraine to terminate about 40 treaties with Russia soon

The Kiev government will soon unilaterally terminate about 40 bilateral agreements with Russia, Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin said in a 1+1 TV channel broadcast on Thursday night.

"Recently, we have terminated 48 international agreements (with Russia). However, this should be done very carefully… so that our Ukrainian citizens were not affected. The next portion of about 40 terminated deals will follow fairly quickly," he said.

According to Ukraine’s top diplomat, Kiev has been overhauling all bilateral treaties with Russia.

"Everything that existed before the war (until 2014 - TASS) by definition makes no sense," Klimkin said.

Earlier, relations between Russia and Ukraine were streamlined by 375 bilateral documents. Some of them have been suspended in recent years due to the eastern Ukrainian conflict between the Kiev government and the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, and Crime’s reunification with Russia in 2014.

On September 24, Kiev formally notified that the bilateral Friendship Treaty was not extended. The deal was signed in May 1997 and entered force in April 1999. The treaty was valid for a ten-year period, and was extended automatically every 10 years if none of the parties objected.

The Ukrainian top diplomat went on to say that in his personal opinion, diplomatic relations between Ukraine and Russia were redundand and should be scrapped. 

"I personally and emotionally believe that we need no diplomatic relations with Russia at all," Klimkin said. "I will tell you, frankly, that I have already discussed that with some countries and I know their answer <…> they are ready to serve as mailboxes for delivering some documents, and that’s all [we need]."

However, he added that that the ties cannot be cut at the moment, because many Ukrainian citizens stay on the Russian territory. According to the minister, almost 3.5 Ukrainians are staying in Russia, and the number of people willing to cross the border with Russia continues to rise.