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Russia's Putin Warming Towards Ukraine's Yushchenko - "and vows he will step down as President of Russia in 2008"
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin went out of his way to compliment Ukraine’s West-leaning president at a lunch with scholars, suggesting an attempt to thaw recent frosty relations, participants at the meeting said. Putin’s new warmth towards Kiev and President Viktor Yushchenko could help in forthcoming talks on gas supplies, an issue that sparked a major row last January and disrupted supplies to Western Europe. It is the first time anything positive was heard from Putin on Yushchenko personally,” Nikolai Zlobin, of the Washington-based World Security Institute, said late on Saturday.
Moscow’s relations with Kiev soured when the 2004 “Orange Revolution” swept Yushchenko to power and defeated Viktor Yanukovich, the candidate openly favoured by the Kremlin. But a coalition of the president’s allies collapsed and last month Yanukovich became prime minister in a power-sharing deal with Yushchenko. Putin was speaking at an annual lunch on Saturday for about 50 Russia scholars, mainly from the United States and Europe. Note EU-Digest Of particular interest was that Russian President Vladimir Putin during this luncheon speech vowed to step down in 2008 and said he would recommend his successor fight poverty and ensure strong economic growth, said experts who attended a lunch with the president.
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