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The Moscow-led Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan may have to use protective measures should Ukraine sign an association agreement with the European Union, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said, as quoted by RIA Novosti. 

“If our neighbors [Ukraine] resort to a substantial liberalization of their customs regime with the EU, goods that are not bad in terms of quality and price would inevitably gush to the Ukrainian market, but they would be squeezing out Ukrainian-made goods from the Ukrainian market,” Putin said Thursday.

“Then the Customs Union countries would have to think about protective measures,” he said at a meeting on the social and economic development of the southern Russian Rostov Region that borders on Ukraine.

Putin said that the country of origin would be hard to identify for such goods.

The Russian president said a Ukrainian delegation would arrive in Moscow next week for consultations over Kiev’s plans of cooperation with the EU.