KIEV, Jan. 9 – Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Thursday expanding cooperation with Russia will help Ukraine accelerate economic growth in 2014, but added that political crisis remains the only risk to stability.

The comment shows the government plans to build on the increasing cooperation with Russia and to ignore massive street protests that had demanded closer cooperation with the European Union.

“Starting next month we should run at full capacity our industrial cooperation programs with Russia that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs,” Azarov said at a government meeting. “The year of 2014 should be the year of breakthrough.”

Azarov admitted last month that Ukraine narrowly averted “bankruptcy” and “social collapse” after securing $15 billion no-strings-attached loan from Russia on December 17.

The government failed to secure $15 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, which had demanded painful reforms to make sure that the economy recovers from its worst performance over the past five years.

Russia agreed to bail out Ukraine by purchasing its sovereign bonds after Kiev performed a sharp foreign policy U-turn and refused to sign deals on political association and free trade with the European Union in late November.

Russia recently transferred the first $3 billion tranche of the bailout, with the remaining $12 billion to be disbursed in 2014.

The deal with Russia sparked large-scale protests in Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of people have gathered every weekend on Kiev's main square to demand the government's resignation.

President Viktor Yanukovych, however, has largely ignored their demands and pressed ahead with the Russian rapprochement, securing, in addition to the bailout money, a sizeable discount on the price of natural gas imported from Russia.

Azarov admitted that the protests and the political crisis it provokes may derail the government’s efforts to kick-start the economic growth.

“It’s either we forever on the path of cardinal modernization of the economy or we are going to sink in domestic political infighting,” Azarov said.

“Once we achieve consolidation among the people, the year of 2014 will become the year of stable prices, stable exchange rate, gradual increase in wages and budget revenues,” Azarov said. (tl/ez)