“We absolutely do not want to be a battleground between the EU and Russia, a field of confrontation,” Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said. “We want to have good relations with both the EU and Russia.”
Yanukovich, who speaks of a “pause” in Kiev's move towards the West, said he would explain Kiev's action to the EU.
“Today my plans have not changed. I have repeatedly said that I am planning to go to Vilnius,” he was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.
The Vilnius agreement would have marked a definitive turn towards the West for Kiev and away from Moscow, which sees Ukraine as a sphere of its economic and political influence.
Azarov said Thursday's decision to suspend the signing with the EU and revive economic dialogue with Russia, Ukraine's former Soviet master and biggest single trading partner, had been taken out of economic necessity.
Ukraine is heavily indebted and strongly reliant on Russian gas, for which it says it is paying unreasonably high prices.
Given the outcry over Ukraine's about-turn after years of negotiations with the EU, Azarov's words set the scene for a possibly strained encounter - in all likelihood at a dinner in Vilnius on Thursday night - between Yanukovich and the club of 28 EU leaders.
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