MOSCOW. Nov 30 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has dismissed a statement made late last week by a top Ukrainian oil and gas official and practically excluded the possibility of Ukraine supplying Russia with weapons as payment for imports of Russian natural gas.
"As regards armaments, no purchases from Ukraine are under consideration and no possible list (of such armaments - Interfax) is under discussion. The time of bartering is in the past," Ivanov told reporters in Moscow.
"If one talks about armaments, we have not bought them from Ukraine for a long time, at least there haven't been any such purchases this century," he said.
However, "since Soviet times close ties of cooperation in the defense sector have developed between Russia and Ukraine, including with regards to the supply of components for armaments," Ivanov said.
Though "cooperation has declined over the past few years," this form of cooperation is something "one can speak of in realistic terms," but, "as regards a final model for armaments, Russia doesn't buy any," he said.
"We pay actual money even for the component units (of armaments - Interfax) that we buy in Ukraine," Ivanov said.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Anatoly Hrytsenko has also denied any plans for his country to trade weapons for Russian gas.
"There have been no negotiations to such an effect between the defense ministries of the two countries," he said after talks with Ivanov. Hrytsenko described such speculation as "improper and premature."
Late last week, the head of Ukrainian oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukraine, Oleksiy Ivchenko, told reporters that Ukraine was prepared to supply Russia with military goods worth a total of more than $1 billion as payment for extra gas imports.