He said the EU had offered aid worth 610 million euros and had linked this to Ukraine agreeing on a fresh programme with the International Monetary Fund which itself had laid down unacceptable conditions.

"We don't need to be humiliated like this. We are a significant country. A European one," he explained in a television declaration. "When it corresponds to our interests, when we have agreed (with the EU) on normal conditions, (only) then can we consider signing," he explained