Ukraine, Russia to negotiate USSR's real estate property abroad

Russo-Ukrainian negotiations on the former USSR's real estate property abroad will be held in Kiev on August 12-13th.

According to the press service of the Ukrainian foreign ministry, the sides will have to clarify several disputable issues related to Soviet real estate, which have long hung in mid-air.

Upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow proposed the so-called "zero option" to all the former Soviet republics. The "zero option" suggested that the former Soviet republics should either assume obligations to repay their share of the USSR's foreign debts, or give up any aspirations for the Soviet Union's real estate property abroad in exchange for Russia assuming the burden of the Soviet Union's debts. The former Soviet republics, including Ukraine, were not very willing to pay the USSR's foreign debts and thus all of them approved the "zero option". Now the official Kiev who refused to pay Soviet debts at the time, has remembered Soviet foreign property and intends to demand part of it, though without any ground. The negotiations will show how the issue is settled. However, Moscow has every intention to stick to the agreements reached within the "zero option".