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

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.

The loan programme includes a $177 million loan from the IBRD, a $34 million loan from the Clean Technology Fund and a $1 million CTF grant to make the Ukrainian system more resilient.

Lukashenko has been engaged in retrenchment since the EU imposed new sanctions aimed mainly at the ex-Soviet state's exports.

An agreement with Antonov could revive TMZ's past as one of the biggest aircraft assembly plants in Central Asia.