Old enmity erupts over EU accord

RUSSIA has been accused of starting a ‘‘cold war’’ with Ukraine and plotting to intervene in domestic politics to draw it away from Europe and back into Moscow’s orbit.

Secret documents published by a Ukrainian newspaper allegedly reveal a Russian plan to prevent Kiev signing a landmark Association Agreement with the European Union – which would provide a framework for co-operation – and wrestle it, instead, into a customs union with its former Soviet partners.

Sergei Glazyev, an adviser to President Putin, announced this week that punitive customs checks that were imposed last week on Ukrainian imports were Russia’s way of showing that it was ‘‘preparing to tighten customs procedures if Ukraine makes this suicidal step of signing the Association Agreement with the EU’’.

The extraordinary customs checks were dropped on Tuesday, but only after a reprimand from the EU.

The documents published by Dzerkalo Tyzhnia at the weekend were said to detail the response to a request from Putin to Glazyev to prevent the signing of agreements with the EU at a summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, in November.

They set out three goals: prevent Ukraine from signing an EU Association Agreement; create an ‘‘influential network’’ of pro-Russian organisations in Ukraine; and bring the country into the Eurasian Customs Union and Single Economic Space by 2015.

The authenticity of the documents is disputed, but Volodymyr Ohryzko, a former Ukrainian foreign minister, told reporters: ‘‘I hope this document will be read by as many Western diplomats in Ukraine as possible. Maybe it will help them to realise that there is a systematic ideological, political, economic and information war being waged against Ukraine.’’