OREANDA-NEWS. June 30, 2010. Talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations chaired by Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have been started.

At the beginning of the meeting Vladimir Putin has stressed that the cooperation between Ukraine and Russia is developing dynamically in various fields, as evidenced by actual results achieved. Thus, in 2009 the trade turnover between Ukraine and the Russian Federation had plunged from 40 to 22 billion USD and within four months in 2010 compared to the same period 2009 the volume of bilateral trade in goods and services has doubled.

In turn, Mykola Azarov has noted that the unprecedented growth in turnover in 2010 is the result of primarily political stabilization and reconstruction of real partnership and mutually beneficial relationship: "Such a level and volume of cooperation require personal intervention by the Heads of both Governments to solve issues that rise and where it’s necessary – to speed up processes. And we are doing this in order to make our relations strategic".

During the talks the parties will discuss the implementation of the Protocol of the sixth session of the Intergovernmental Committee on Economic Cooperation of the Ukrainian-Russian Intergovernmental Commission held in Sochi in late April. According to experts, all items of the Protocol are being implemented in full and in time.

In addition, during the negotiations, the Ukrainian and Russian delegations will consider several other urgent issues of bilateral relations. In particular, as stated yesterday in the Crimea Mykola Azarov, he intends to discuss with Putin the possibility of joint efforts to solve the problems of Sevastopol.

The Ukrainian side has also developed and submitted to the Russian one the concept of economic cooperation between Ukraine and Russia by 2020.