Komsomolskaya Pravda: "Vladimir Putin visits Crimea"
Prime Minister Putin meets Ukrainian President Yanukovych in the Crimea.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych met informally in the Crimea on Saturday. Putin scheduled a private visit to see him. Yanukovych prepared thoroughly for the meeting. He was in a T-shirt and had a new hairdo. Ukrainian journalists wrote that the president was starting to look like actor Yevgeny Leonov in the movie "Gentlemen of Fortune."
Mr Putin's Ukrainian hosts put their Russian guest up at Mikhail Gorbachev's former dacha, Zarya -- nine kilometers away from Mukhalatka, Yanukovych's official residence.
"We have much to discuss. The government has reported to me that the subcommittees have prepared a lot of material," Yanukovych said at the beginning of the meeting.
Putin said he had spoken with his Ukrainian counterpart Nikolai Azarov over the phone before the meeting. Azarov did not attend this meeting – officially he was on vacation. However, he sent his best to Putin via the media, though he didn't miss the opportunity to mention in an interview that, in Kiev's opinion, gas transit charges through Ukraine were about two times too low. Azarov was quoting Ukrainian experts' calculation methodology.
Azarov can expect a reaction to his formulaic revelations from his Russian colleagues during a visit to Moscow next week. There is little information about the Crimea meeting. The Ukrainian president's press service said the participants "discussed important issues." The Russian Embassy put it as follows: Putin and Yanukovych discussed "various aspects of bilateral relations." In the meantime, analysts maintain that they talked about gas, the Customs Union and Yulia Tymoshenko's case.
Gleb Shcheglov
