Ukraine President-elect Viktor Yanukovich said he plans to strengthen links with Russia and that improved relations would end the spectre of recent gas rows, which last year curbed supplies to Europe.
Yanukovich, a former prime minister who narrowly beat current Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko told a British newspaper that Ukraine would act as a stabilising power between East and West.
“The truth is that I am on Ukraine’s side. I want balanced and pragmatic relations with our strategic partners.”
Yanukovich said Europe could be reassured that under his leadership Ukraine would avoid the disputes with Moscow that lead to gas shortages in the past.
“When I was prime minister on two different occasions we never had such problems,” he told the paper.
“The conflicts were unjustified and relations with Russia over-politicised. Ukraine can play a stabilising role in many questions between Europe and Russia,” he said.
Ukraine, bordered by Russia and EU members, is an essential transit route for Russian energy supplies to Europe. More than one fifth of the gas consumed by the EU is carried through Ukraine’s pipelines.
A row last January over gas bills led to Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom cutting off supplies, which left many EU customers without gas for nearly two weeks.
In an early sign of overtures towards Moscow, Yanukovich, in an interview aired on Russian television recently, said Ukraine may allow Russia to station its Black Sea Fleet in the port of Sevastopol beyond a scheduled withdrawal in 2017.
He also said he wants to help Russia join the WTO.
The 59-year-old leader, who said he also did not want to turn his back on Europe, was initially declared the winner of a presidential election in 2004.
However, widespread popular protests of vote rigging led to an annulment. Yanukovich subsequently lost a re-run to Viktor Yushchenko, one of the co-leaders of the pro-Western Orange Revolution along with Tymoshenko.
Yanukovich, who believes Washington helped engineer the Orange Revolution said he bore no grudges.
“Today [America’s involvement] is not a secret. It was known and understood a long time ago. But we have already turned a new page and are looking to the future.”
Yanukovich, a native Russian speaker from the Donbass mining region, who often stumbles over Ukrainian words, said he wants the Russian language to have equal or near equal status with Ukrainian, the country’s current sole official language.
Tymoshenko renewed charges of election fraud against Yanukovich’s camp and said she intended to mount a legal challenge.
However international monitors regard the vote as legitimate and Western leaders, including President Obama and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen have congratulated Yanukovich on his victory.