Ukraine Interim Leader Warns of Economic Danger

The problem of the two-headed snake still exists if the U.S. and the European Union pledged aid for a new cabinet. The Ukrainian people are still in danger!

Financial Juice – by Daryna Krasnolutska, Kateryna Choursina and Ilya Arkhipov

Ukrainian parliament Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov, handed presidential powers as lawmakers prepare to form a coalition government, warned that the economy was in a “pre-default situation.”  

Lawmakers in Kiev worked on reshaping government after oustingViktor Yanukovych from the presidency for a role in the violence that killed at least 82 people last week. The U.S. and the European Union pledged aid for a new cabinet. Border guards stopped Yanukovych at an airport in the eastern city of Donetsk two days ago. He wasn’t detained.

With protesters in control of the capital and Yanukovych denouncing events as a “coup d’etat,” his opponents face a contentious period after the release from prison of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko. Jailed more than two years ago for abuse of power, she vowed to return to the fractured political scene before presidential elections on May 25.

Ukraine’s economy is spinning out of control,” Turchynov said on parliament’s website late yesterday. “The new government’s task is to stop the country’s slide, to stabilize the currency rate, to ensure timely salary and pension payments, to win back investors’ trust, and to create new jobs. Another priority is to return to the European integration path.”

Mykola Tomenko, a member of Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party, said the former premier was a candidate for the premiership, along with party leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk and billionaire ex-Economy Minister Petro Poroshenko. Tymoshenko later ruled out such a role for herself, as did Vitali Klitschko, who heads the UDAR party.

Nation Divided

Ukraine spiraled into crisis in November when protesters took to the streets to oppose Yanukovych’s rejection of a deal to deepen ties with the European Union. Violence crested last week in fighting in central Kiev before a peace agreement brokered by EU foreign ministers ended the clashes and triggered Yanukovych’s flight from Kiev.

The peace deal bolstered Ukrainian assets, with the yield on the government bond maturing in April 2023 falling 77 basis points, or 0.77 percentage point, on Feb. 21 to 10.33 percent.

With western nations and Russia tussling for sway over the country of 45 million people, the International Monetary Fund is ready to help Ukraine “not only from a humanitarian point of view but also from an economic point of view,” Managing Director Christine Lagardetold reporters in Sydney following a meeting of Group of 20 officials yesterday.

Checkbook Ready

Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said the U.S. was prepared to help Ukraine return to a path of democracy, stability and growth. U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne agreed.

“We are here ready to help just as soon as there is someone at the end of the telephone,” Osborne said in an interview yesterday in Sydney. “We should be there with a checkbook to help the people of Ukraine rebuild their country.”

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, will travel to Ukraine today to meet party leaders. Russia halted a $15 billion bailout for its neighbor after the unrest and talks on resumed financing may continue only after a new government is formed, RIA Novosti reported yesterday, citing Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov in Sydney.

Yanukovych’s departure is a blow to Russia, whose PresidentVladimir Putin wanted Ukraine, a rout for its energy shipments toEurope, to join a trade partnership of former Soviet states to rival the EU.

In Ukraine, the political crisis polarized sentiment in largely between its western and central regions bordering the EU and those in the south and east that are home to more Russian speakers and ethnic Russians.

Lenin Toppled

While people toppled Vladimir Lenin’s statues across the county as protests, according to TV channel 5, more than 2,000 rallied for closer ties with Russia in the southern city of Odessa. In Kerch, also in the south, marchers replaced a Ukrainian flag at the mayor’s office with Russian and Crimean flags, the Unian news service reported.

The opposition is following the lead of “armed extremists and thugs whose actions pose a direct threat to the sovereignty and constitutional order in Ukraine,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a statement On Feb 22.

Russia called its ambassador to Kiev back to Moscow for consultations due to “aggravation of the situation” in Ukraine and a “need for in-depth analysis,” its Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website yesterday.

‘Grave Mistake’

White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice said the U.S.would work with European partners to help finance Ukraine’s economic recovery, while warning Russia that any insertion of its troops would be “a grave mistake.”

“It’s not in the interests of Ukraine or of Russia or of Europe or of the United States to see the country split,” Rice said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. “It’s in nobody’s interest to see violence return and the situation escalate.”

Russia should recognize Ukraine’s “European Choice,” Turchynov said in the statement.

“We are ready for a dialog with top Russian officials to build relations on new, truly equal grounds,” he said.

Turchynov, the deputy chairman of Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party, also has temporary control over the outgoing cabinet. That administration has shrunk after lawmakers voted out the foreign, interior and other ministers.

‘Escape, Cowardice’

Turchynov said he would give up his leadership positions once an executive is formed.

Parliament also approved measures aimed at bringing those responsible for the violence to justice, while Yanukovych’s Party of Regions blamed him for the bloodshed.

“We condemn Yanukovych’s escape and cowardice,” the party said in a statement on its website yesterday. It decried “criminal orders that led to victims, an empty treasury, huge debt and shame in the eyes of Ukraine and the whole world.”

Border officials stopped Yanukovych’s plane in Donetsk two days ago and refused an offer from armed men of money in exchange for permission to depart, Oleh Slobodyan, head of the Border Service media department, said by phone yesterday.

Yanukovych left the airport in an armored car and hasn’t been seen trying to cross the border again. Former Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko, ex-Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka and former Tax Minister Oleksandr Klymenko were also denied permission to leave at the same airport.

Wealth Disparity

With Yanukovych on the run, thousands of people visited his former residence over the weekend after lawmakers voted to revert it to state ownership. People milled around the man-made lakes, the life-sized galleon, the private zoo and a garage full of antique cars and limousines that surround a towering mansion, according to images on website Censor.net.

The luxurious estate dominated news broadcasts in Ukraine, where the average nominal wage is 3,619 hryvnia ($404) a month, according to data from the national Statistics Office.

Tymoshenko, jailed in 2011 for abuse of office on charges EU leaders have called politically motivated, spoke by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Union Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule yesterday.

After telling journalists two days ago that she would run for president in May, Tymoshenko yesterday said she didn’t want to be considered for prime minister of the new cabinet.

“I was surprised by information that I am proposed for the post of prime minister,” she said in a statement on her website, addressing lawmakers in parliament. “Thank you very much for respect, but I ask you not to consider my candidacy.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Daryna Krasnolutska in Kievat dkrasnolutsk@bloomberg.net; Kateryna Choursina in Kiev atkchoursina@bloomberg.net; Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow atiarkhipov@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Balazs Penz atbpenz@bloomberg.net; James M. Gomez at jagomez@bloomberg.net

http://www.financialjuice.com/News/715031/Ukraine-Interim-Leader-Warns-of-Economic-Danger.aspx

 

8 thoughts on “Ukraine Interim Leader Warns of Economic Danger

  1. I would like to take this time to thank Henry, JD and all the people From the Trenches for keeping myself aware of all the propaganda that is taking place in front of my eyes in the Ukraine and around the world… Thank You All

  2. “White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice said the U.S.would work with European partners to help finance Ukraine’s economic recovery…”

    Was there ever any question that the Ukraine nation destabilization is the machination of the bankster scum, carried out by their minions?

    1. Save them from debt by increasing their debt, followed by austerity, higher taxes, savings and pension raids, and then another round of debt. Turn them into debt slaves and use them as a base and fodder for the new cold war against Russia. I can empathize with those who remember when Stalin starved millions of Ukrainians; and so associate modern Russia with those crimes. However, as with most of the world’s population, they have no concept of reality and are manipulated in doing what the fascists desire. Problem, reaction, solution. This revolution will be hijacked by the triangle club.

  3. You’ll know for certain who Ukrainian parliament Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov is working for when you hear is proposed solutions for the economic problem.

    He’ll either mortgage his people and country to pay the Rothschilds, or boot them out and issue sovereign Ukrainian currency. The latter option will save the economy, his people and his country.

    1. So true … and to add to that … do you think he knows the latter option would see him dead? The human race was not put here to fight these oligarchs in order to have an existence. These tyranical oligarchs need to “go away” and leave us alone!!
      . . .

  4. In light of the situation in the Ukraine, Venezuela, and all these other countries where destabilization is taking place, with all the people in the streets fighting for their very existence, my only question is this….

    How long, or when, will the U.S. be on the serving platter? Cuz ya know we are in a war and ya know it’s comin’.
    . . .

    1. know what else, Cathleen?

      We’re kind of responsible for the destabilization the CIA causes in other countries because we’re NOT destabilizing our own country a bit.

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