Kuchma: Ukraine will have to contact Russia, otherwise how will it receive reparations?

Economic contacts with Russia after the war are absolutely necessary, otherwise Ukraine will not be able to receive reparations from the Russian Federation. This was stated in an interview with Interfax — Ukraine by the second president of the country (1994-2005) Leonid Kuchma.

"After the war, economic contacts with Russia are not only possible for Ukraine, but absolutely necessary! Otherwise, how will we receive reparations? I can't imagine any other connections, at least in the first post—war years," Kuchma said.

For "other ties," he noted, Russia must go through the process of deimperialization and become a civilized democracy.

"Can you imagine trade and economic cooperation with an aggressive country and people who once tried to destroy you and, on occasion, "can repeat"? I can't," Kuchma explained.

Under all conditions, Russia will remain geographically close to Ukraine, and "the whole periodic table" will remain in its bowels.

"It would seem that geography and geology urge us not to renounce the prospects for economic cooperation with Russia. But we will never forget a story, especially a fresh one. And I do not believe that the ideology of Russia will change if Russia itself does not fundamentally change," the ex-president of Ukraine emphasized.