Russia's president has called for European leaders to stop their "sharp words" over Ukraine's scrapping of a key EU pact, as thousands rallied in Kiev in a third day of protests.
Vladimir Putin said a free trade deal between the European Union and Ukraine that was controversially scrapped last week would have been a "major threat" to the Russian economy.
Ukraine admitted for the first time on Tuesday that Moscow had asked Kiev to delay signing a broad political and free trade pact that would have opened the former Soviet state's path to EU membership.
The EU has accused Russia of pressuring its smaller neighbour not to sign the deal at a summit in Vilnius this week.
EU President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso have said they "strongly disapprove" of Russia's actions, prompting Putin to urge European leaders to tone down their criticism.
"I ask our friends in Brussels to hold back on the sharp words," Putin told reporters during a visit to Italy.
"Do we have to choke entire sectors of our economy for them to like us?"
Last week Ukraine's government stunned the West by halting all preparations for the deal and proposing a three-way commission with Russia and the EU on trade.
The shock decision has sparked the largest protests to hit the ex-Soviet country since the pro-democracy Orange Revolution in 2004, with demonstrators taking to the streets in the capital Kiev and western Ukraine.
Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych has called for calm, and said on Tuesday that his government wanted further negotiations on the terms of the EU pact.
"As soon as we reach a level that is comfortable for us, when it meets our interests, when we agree on normal terms, then we will be talking about signing," Yanukovych said in a televised interview.
"When that will be - soon or not so soon - time will tell. I would like that time to come as soon as possible. We've decided, we have no questions about that, but as far as terms are concerned, it's a matter of principle."
In a video address to the nation late on Monday, the president said Ukraine's battered economy could not afford the free trade deal with the EU.
But that did not appear to convince his opponents, with some 7000 protesters taking to the streets for a third day of rallies on Tuesday, a day after jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko went on hunger strike.
Tymoshenko, an Orange Revolution leader and former premier who has been in jail since 2011 on abuse of power charges, urged Ukrainians to pressure the leadership into signing the pact.
"If Yanukovych does not sign our agreement with the EU on November 29, wipe him off the face of Ukraine through peaceful and constitutional means," she said.
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