“Now let’s go by train”

The presidents of Russia and Ukraine promised to connect the countries with a bridge and a high-speed railway

Dmitry Medvedev and his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych met yesterday in Gelendzhik, where they took part in a meeting of the first interregional economic forum of the two countries.

In order for interaction between the two countries to develop properly, Mr. Medvedev said, special attention should be paid to such areas as infrastructure development and participation in joint large projects. An example of such cooperation could be the construction of a bridge across the Kerch Strait. The Russian President said that he and his Ukrainian colleague got acquainted with one of the projects for the construction of this bridge and instructed the relevant departments to study both it and other available options. “This topic is certainly worthy of presidential attention, because it unites the two countries, creates the best opportunities for citizens to cross the border, and provides opportunities to intensify trade turnover between the two countries,” the Russian leader is convinced.

The bridge-building topic also did not seem alien to Mr. Yanukovych. He even showed great interest, giving a specific time frame for when this project would be completed. In his opinion, the bridge should connect the territories of the two countries already in 2012, when the European Football Championship will be held in Ukraine. A little later, at a joint press conference, Mr. Medvedev admitted that although it would be nice to build a bridge to the start of Euro 2012, it was “unrealistic.” Anticipating the Russian president's skepticism, Mr. Yanukovych proposed a second, more plausible version of the construction completion date. In his opinion, if the work cannot be completed by 2012, then the opening of the bridge should be timed to coincide with the 2014 Olympics in Sochi.

Until then, we will have to cross the Kerch Strait, as before, by ferries. Noting this circumstance, the Ukrainian leader asked Mr. Medvedev to allocate “at least a couple” of additional floating facilities for these purposes. “You have them. If we had, we would have already added,” Mr. Yanukovych said. In response, the Russian leader promised to “pull out” more ferries “so that people don’t stand in queues for 15 hours.”

In addition, Mr. Medvedev believes that the introduction of a “one-window” system at customs could make life easier for ordinary citizens of Russia and Ukraine. “We not only have many different departments that push people in different directions, they also have different names,” he complained, adding that their competencies are different. Bringing this work to a common denominator should help ensure that “there will be less rudeness at the borders, fewer queues, corruption should be reduced,” Mr. Medvedev believes. Separately, the Russian President noted that customs officers should not wake up train passengers crossing the border at night.

“As soon as we unify these procedures, we need to be the first to cross the border. Let’s time it and see how long it takes,” Mr. Yanukovych suggested. In response, Mr. Medvedev recalled that they had already crossed the border together last month. Then both presidents rode in Pobeda cars. “Now we’ll go by train,” he said. To this, the Ukrainian leader said that it would be nice to build a high-speed railway. This idea seemed “very interesting” to the Russian President.

Viktor Yanukovych also proposed the participation of the Ukrainian side in repair work at the facilities of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, whose tenure has now been extended until the middle of the century.

In addition to just announced plans, the first Russian-Ukrainian interregional forum also brought very concrete results. In particular, the parties signed a program of interregional and cross-border cooperation for 2011-2016. The document was signed by the Minister of Regional Development and Construction of Ukraine Vladimir Yatsuba and the head of the Russian Ministry of Economic Development Viktor Basargin. In addition, following the results of the forum, a protocol was signed on cooperation between the Russian and Ukrainian unions of industrialists and entrepreneurs on joint actions to deepen bilateral interregional and business cooperation. The head of the administration of the Krasnodar region, Alexander Tkachev, and the chairman of the Zaporozhye regional state administration, Boris Petrov, signed an action plan for the implementation of the agreement “On trade, economic, scientific, technical and cultural cooperation” for 2011-2012.

“We have revived cooperation between regions; this cooperation did not exist. He was essentially driven out,” Mr. Medvedev said, summing up the forum.

Artem KOBZEV