The European Commission has put forward a 2.3 billion euro ($2.72 billion) economic and investment plan for Eastern Partnership countries.

About a fifth of Uzbekistan's labour force is employed in agriculture, a sector which makes up about a quarter of GDP.

The move will significantly increase output of a project conceived to reduce Europe's dependence on Russian gas.

While Russian and Soviet leaders generally gave the nod to the ethnic differences with other nations with very different ethnicities, languages or religions in their midst, this did not extend to Ukrainians.