Ukraine protesters dig in behind barbed-wire barricades

Russian president in new attempt to woo Ukraine after the European Union and United States step up efforts to pull Kiev out of its former Soviet master's orbit.

MOSCOW // Russian president, Vladimir Putin, made a new attempt to woo Ukraine yesterday after the European Union and United States stepped up efforts to pull Kiev out of its former Soviet master’s orbit.

A day after European and US officials held talks with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in Kiev, Mr Putin used a state of the nation address to tout the economic benefits of joining a customs union that he wants Ukraine to be part of.

Mr Yanukovych, who is seeking the best possible deal for his country of 46 million as it tries to stave off bankruptcy, provoked street protests in Kiev by spurning the chance to sign a free-trade pact with the EU last month and saying he wanted to revive ties with Russia instead.

But he has hedged his bets by making no commitment to join the Moscow-led customs union and holding out the possibility that Kiev could still sign an association agreement that would deepen cooperation with the EU.

“Our integration project is based on equal rights and real economic interests,” Mr Putin said of the customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, which he wants to turn into a political and trading bloc to match the United States and China.

“I’m sure achieving Eurasian integration will only increase interest in it from our other neighbours, including from our Ukrainian partners.”

Mr Putin’s ambition to create a Eurasian Union stretching from the Pacific to the EU’s eastern borders depends largely on whether Ukraine signs up, bringing in its rich mineral resources and its large market, a bridge to the 28-nation bloc.

With thousands of people on the streets of Kiev demanding Yanukovych’s resignation, the diplomatic battle over Ukraine’s fate is heating up.

Late yesterday, helmeted volunteers stared down from a wall of sandbags stuffed with snow, reinforced with iron bars, and topped with barbed-wire and the waving flags of Ukraine and the European Union.

Barricades blocked off the city’s main shopping strip, Khreshchatyk, jarringly close to fashion stores and a central concert hall.

The volunteer builders used whatever was to hand: shovelling snow into plastic sandbags and taking plastic branches from a municipal New Year’s tree. One barricade even incorporates an ice cream stand.

“It turns out that in Kiev everyone is a builder, we all built this,” said 30-year-old Olexander, wearing a plastic helmet, his eyes red with fatigue after staying up all night.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and US assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland came away with no obvious sign of a breakthrough after Wednesday’s talks with Mr Yanukovych.

“Yanukovych made it clear to me he intends to sign the association agreement,” Ms Ashton told reporters in Brussels.

But making clear that Yanukovych was holding out for money to help repay Ukraine’s debts, she said: “What he talked about were the short-term economic issues that the country faces.”

Another EU official said there had been no change in Yanukovych’s position. If anything, he said, the president’s stance had toughened.

Ms Nuland’s visit was followed by a tough statement from Washington condemning the Ukrainian authorities over action by riot police who moved against a protest camp in the heart of Kiev but later withdrew without ousting them.

“All policy options, including sanctions, are on the table, in our view, obviously that still is being evaluated,” state department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, told reporters.

Reuters with additional reporting by Agence France-Presse