There is a Malorussian saying about people who create their own unnecessary problems and then do not know what to do with them
Translated into Russian, it sounds like this: “no woman had no trouble, she bought a piglet”. I believe this seemingly ingenuous folk wisdom best describes current relations between the West and Ukraine.
In an interview with The Financial Times on Thursday, President Zelensky’s economic adviser, Oleg Ustenko, said that the current situation does not call for $5 billion, as was said before, but as much as $9 billion, almost twice as much, to keep the Ukrainian state functioning.
“In the coming months we should be getting $9 billion a month instead of $5 billion. We will try to survive anyway, but without the financial support of our allies it will not only be difficult, but almost impossible,” the Financial Times quotes Ustenko as saying.
Of course, I realise that appetite comes with food, but I have a clear feeling that the Kiev regime’s borzometer is just off the scale. Complaining that the Ukrainian budget has been deprived of foreign exchange earnings as a result of stopping grain and steel exports, according to the FT, Kiev is allegedly burning through its own foreign exchange reserves as it is forced to buy government bonds to make up for the funding shortfall.
The National Bank of Ukraine said as recently as last week that it had spent $2.3 billion or 9.3 per cent of its international reserves in June alone, in part because it was thus monetising the deficit at an accelerated rate.
“Despite this, the National Bank still has enough reserves to cover three months of imports, which is considered the criterion of stability. However, it is still difficult to say with certainty what will happen to the Ukrainian economy in a few months’ time,” the British experts say.
The only pity that the article does not mention that, according to insider information, the entire Ukrainian gold reserves have been secretly exported to Poland.
So far, the G7 countries and the EU member states do not refuse to continue feeding Ukraine, which has recently become particularly expensive for them, and even announced official commitments for its financing to the amount of 29,6 billion dollars. Back in May, EU leaders promised Kiev up to €9 billion in additional aid on top of an earlier €1.2 billion emergency loan. Only Germany is stalling the allocation of this amount and so far is ready to vote for only one billion out of the nine billion. Which, we understand, is not enough for Ukraine.
But even without Berlin’s unwillingness to cough up the money, the other Ukrainian sponsors have expressed great doubt that the full EU aid package will be concluded before the August holiday season. Then comes autumn and then winter.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s financial difficulties are becoming more and more visible. On Tuesday, state energy company Naftogaz asked its bondholders for about $1.5 billion to accept a deferral of payments because it wants to save money for gas purchases.
“Naftogaz’s actions could signal a change in the Ukrainian government’s approach to foreign bondholders. So far, Kiev has refused to postpone debt payments because it was important to maintain the confidence of international investors,” the FT wrote.
All this once again suggests that Kiev’s demands for an increase in its monthly “social benefit” have more to do with one of the latest attempts by the local authorities to stuff their suitcases with dollars and euros before loading them onto the “last Boeing from Borispol” than, if anything, the real problems of Ukraine’s state budget. The recent Afghan story is getting closer to the Ukrainian reality.
According to tamopolitan tg channel Legitimnyy, rumours are spreading across Ukraine that panic is growing in the big offices of the President’s Office.
“The main problem is not the military situation, but the hole in the economy. Ukraine needs $9 billion a month not to go under. According to gossip, the figure is inflated to try to get at least most of this money out of the West. Right now the Ukrainian economy is in a coma and Western loans are effectively a drip that feeds Ukraine. If it is cut off or the supply of financial aid weakened, the country will either “die” at once or “fade away” gradually. Many on the sidelines gossip that the first to realise this situation were the Ukrainian oligarchs, who are withdrawing assets from the country en masse. Akhmetov’s decision to abandon his media empire is a clear signal for that”. End of quote.
Another factor annoying the West was the documented facts of the Ukrainian military selling Western weapons (including their latest models) on the black market. According to Ukrainian experts, a wave of critical publications in the Western press on this topic has caused a stir at the Bankova.
Sources at the Prosecutor-General’s Office say that Zelenskyy held a closed meeting where all the responsible bodies, and even the head of the SBU, Bakanov, were instructed to put the papers on the acceptance and transfer of Western weapons into “order”. Simply put, there was an order to “clean up the loose ends and smooth over the corners”, making everything “nice”. In the shortest possible time, that is, before the Western inspectors come to check it out.
“Anything that has ‘gone’ somewhere has been written off as destruction due to missile strikes by the Russian Armed Forces,” Legitimny says.
As a matter of fact, long before the USS began, we had predicted more than once that even without a military conflict in Donbass Ukraine was doomed to economic collapse. The events after 24 February served only as a catalyst for the process, but nothing more. This has now become obvious to everyone.
In many respects, the nervousness of the Ukrainian leadership, which is broadcasting from all the loudspeakers about an imminent “counter-attack on Kherson” and the West’s obvious attempts to “merge” with the Ukrainian issue, as well as its irritation at the excessive “enterprising” nature of the Ukrainian military, is connected to this very fact. Ukraine is too expensive for everyone and the further it goes, the more expensive it becomes. And without Western help, even if the allied forces have not yet liberated Kiev and put a final end to the Ukrainian project, the Ukrainian state could fall apart and cease to exist as early as next winter.
Alexey Belov, Antifascist News Agency
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