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Kuchma, Putin admit strained Russia-Ukraine ties

MOSCOW, Aug 8 (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Leonid Kuchma conceded Thursday that a string of trade and political disputes were damaging relations between the two neighbors.

Kuchma arrived in Russia for a two-day economic summit expected to be dominated by a dispute over energy payments by Kiev to Moscow.

The Ukrainian president met Putin at the Kremlin, telling him there were a string of problems "that needed to be addressed at the highest level.

"It is better to have a bad peace then some kind of war" between Russia and Ukraine, Kuchma said in televised remarks.

Kuchma added however that the two sides should not be speaking of an all-out "trade war" at this time.

Putin for his part replied that Kuchma had been invited to Moscow because trade between the two former Soviet republics was steadily dropping and the issued needed to be urgently tackled.

"We have outstanding problems, and there are very many of them," Putin said. "Some of these problems need to be constantly addressed."

Moscow and Russian gas giant Gazprom have repeatedly accused Ukraine of siphoning off Russian gas shipments to Europe. The two sides last year agreed a tentative agreement on restructuring Kiev's 1.4-billion-dollar gas debt to Moscow.

On the political front, Russia has been upset by Ukraine's decision to speed up its application process for NATO membership.

Last month, Kiev sparked fury in Moscow by deciding to prepare legislation to rehabilitate members of a "Ukrainian rebel army" which fought against the Soviet Red Army during World War II.

Russia, for its part, decided to ban the local release of a Ukrainian film which chronicled early Ukrainian nationalist aspirations.

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