KIEV, Aug. 14 – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday rejected calls from President Viktor Yushchenko for talks to discuss problems, suggesting relations between Moscow and Kiev will continue to deteriorate during the next six months.

Medvedev, who has refused to meet Yushchenko over the past 12 months, recently accused the Ukrainian president of sticking to “anti-Russian” policy, and postponed arrival of Russia’s new ambassador in Ukraine indefinitely.

“I don’t see any prospect of renewing normal relations between the incumbent leaders,” Medvedev said at a press conference in Sochi, according to Interfax-Ukraine. “I believe it’s not Russia’s fault, whatever they say.”

The comment suggests the relations between Russia and Ukraine, the two biggest countries in Europe in terms of territory, will continue to worsen at least through the next Ukrainian presidential election due January 17, 2010.

Analysts said Medvedev’s unusually strongly worded letter to Yushchenko last week was aimed at setting a stage for Russia’s attempt to influence the election to try to promote a pro-Russian candidate.

“Let’s wait and see,” Medvedev said. “I hope that the new leadership of Ukraine will have a number of opportunities to greatly improve our relations.”

The Kremlin is thought to have established good relations with at least two potential presidential candidates in Ukraine, including Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych.

Yanukovych, in comments released hours after Medvedev’s letter Tuesday, de-facto supported the Russian president, slamming Yushchenko for the “anti-Russian” policy.

Yanukovych, in a capacity of pro-Russian candidate, lost election to Yushchenko, a pro-Westerner, in dramatic presidential election in December 2004 following the Orange Revolution, a popular uprising against election fraud.

In 2004 Moscow heavily backed Yanukovych politically and financially, but the Supreme Court had cancelled Yanukovych’s “victory” in the second round as fraudulent.

Tymoshenko, who suspended her pro-Western rhetoric after a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in April 2008, has ever since been conducting a very cautious policy.

For example, she never criticized Russia for what has been defined by the world’s most countries as “disproportionate” use of military force when thousands of Russian troops had poured into Georgia during a five-day war in August 2008.

Tymoshenko also suspended several important energy projects, such as supplies of Caspian Sea crude to Europe via Ukraine’s oil pipeline Odessa-Brody, which had been originally aimed at limiting dependence on Russian crude oil.

On Friday, or three days after Medvedev’s letter, Tymoshenko was the last Ukrainian politicians to provide her comments on the issue.

“As the prime minister, I did and will do everything possible to deepen mutually beneficial cooperation between Ukraine and Russia, first of all in economic area that the government is responsible for,” Tymoshenko said. “In the same fashion, I will act at any other position that I will be entrusted by the Ukrainian people.”

“Ukraine will independently, without foreign intrusion, be defining its foreign and domestic policies,” Tymoshenko said.

“We are always ready to hear and listen to opinions of our partners in the East and in the West, to take into account their interests, but intrusion in our domestic affairs is unacceptable,” Tymoshenko said. (tl/ez)