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KIEV, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine has suffered economic damage of estimated 15 billion U.S. dollars over the past few years due to a sharp decline of its exports to Russia, President Petro Poroshenko said Tuesday.
"Russia' s closure of its market came as an economic shock for Ukraine. It cost us, according to some estimates, at least 15 billion dollars. We lost dozens, if not hundreds of thousands of jobs," Poroshenko said, speaking at the opening of the parliamentary session.
Exports to Russia, which used to be the main destination for the Ukrainian goods, fell by almost fivefold since trade tensions between the two ex-Soviet neighbors erupted, Poroshenko said, adding that the drop was one of the key reasons behind the declining living standards in Ukraine.
Today, the Russian market accounts for only 9 percent of Ukraine's overall overseas sales and this figure continues to decline, he said.
Currently, Ukraine is striving to diversify its export markets to partially offset shrinking sales to Russia, Poroshenko added.
The trade row between Kiev and Moscow started in March 2012, when Ukraine voiced its intention to sign a free-trade deal with the European Union (EU), while Russia vowed to take measures to protect its market if Kiev seals the pact.
Tensions escalated at the start of 2016, when the Kiev-EU agreement came into the force, as Moscow suspended a Russia-Ukraine free-trade deal and imposed a total ban on the import of agricultural products from Ukraine.
In response, Kiev has canceled preferential import duties on a range of Russian goods and imposed an embargo on some products made in Russia.
Ukraine' s exports of goods to Russia hit a record high of 19.8 billion dollars in 2011 and since then it has gradually declined. Last year, Ukraine sold only 4.8 billion dollars worth of commodities to its giant neighbor.
