KIEV, August 12 (RIA Novosti) - Kiev said on Wednesday that claims by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that Ukraine was responsible for deteriorating relations were aimed at the entire country, rather than President Yushchenko.
"The aggressive tone in the statement made by the Russian leader does not, in essence, concern Yushchenko and his policies, but our entire state and nation," Ukrainian news agency UNIAN quoted presidential aide Vera Ulyanchenko as saying.
In a video message to Yushchenko on Tuesday, Medvedev said he was holding off sending Russia's new ambassador to Ukraine, former health minister Mikhail Zurabov, over Kiev's anti-Russian policies.
The Russian president pointed the finger at Yushchenko for the worsening in relations between the former Soviet republics, expressing his "deep concern at the current, without exaggeration, crisis in Russian-Ukrainian relations."
"We observe that during the years of your presidency, and it is impossible to see it differently, that the Ukrainian side has withdrawn from the principles of friendship and partnership with Russia," Medvedev said, taking the unusual step of speaking directly to Yushchenko in the open address.
He also accused Ukraine of supplying weapons to Georgia during last year's war between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia.
Relations between the two former Soviet republics have been strained in recent years over gas supplies, Ukraine's desire to join NATO, and the Soviet-era famine in Ukraine.
A Ukrainian political analyst said on Tuesday that Medvedev's "unprecedented" move was a signal that there would now be limited contacts with the Ukrainian president and ministries.
"I would say [relations will be frozen] until the inauguration of a new Ukrainian president," said Mykhailo Pohrebinskiy, director of the Kiev-based Center for Political Research and Conflict Studies.
Presidential polls in Ukraine are slated for January 17. Yushchenko's popularity is currently in single digits.
