Blue &Yellow: Politics and Economics in Ukraine

Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has asked Head of Kyiv City State Administration Oleksandr Popov to tell Kyiv residents why Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky is not at work.

"Oleksandr Pavlovych [Popov], is he [Chernovetsky] on vacation? And who is suffering due to his absence? Do Kyivans want him to come back? They dream of it. Be sure to find the mayor and tell him that all Kyivans miss him, want to see him very much and are asking him to get to work," he told First Vice-Premier Andriy Kliuyev and the head of Kyiv City State Administration.

Ukraine’s state debt, including guarantees, jumped 36.4 percent in 2010 as the government borrowed from the International Monetary Fund and sold bonds to cover the budget deficit and help state-owned companies.

The total debt surged to $52.3 billion as of end 2010, compared with $39.8 billion a year ago, the Kiev-based Finance Ministry said today in a statement on its website.

Via Bloomberg, I wonder how much of that debt is related to financing Euro 2012? On a related note, FIFA warned state authories to not remove the current head of the FFU, Hrigory Surkis, before 2012.

Over 300 criminal cases on corruption have been opened against current officials, according to the presidential administration.

"Criminal cases have been opened against over 350 high ranking officials appointed after [Ukrainian President Viktor] Yanukovych came to power," Deputy Presidential Administration Head Hanna Herman said on Channel 5 on Sunday evening.

At the same time she noted that there are no reports about this in the mass media as the press "is not intenerated in this."

Herman said that, the mass media, including the foreign media, publish reports in the interests of people "who try to benefit from this, who try to excuse their crimes, [their] violations of the law, with some political reasons." 

From Interfax-Ukraine, the simple answer is that  the Tymoshenko's govrnment were not the sole source of corruption in Ukraine.

According to the IMF, Ukraine as of January 6, 2011, ranked second in terms of its liabilities due to the IMF since August 2010.The IMF's No. 1 debtor is Romania with SDR 9.8 billion, and third place is occupied by Greece with SDR 9.13 billion.As of the beginning of 2011, Ukraine accounted for two out of every nine dollars of all the countries' debts to the fund under standard loan programs, according to the IMF

From Interfax-Ukraine, I believe that the article misses an important distinction between Ukraine, Romania, and Greece. Greece (and Ireland)  has been bailed out by the EU under its throw-lots-of-euros-at-the-problem program, while Ukriane and Romania have not.

There are those who will instinctively dislike Shakhtar because they are oligarch-driven, but it is hard to believe any oligarch has driven his club was well as Rinat Akhmetov. He has shown great patience, giving Mircea Lucescu six years to construct a squad that plays intelligent, attacking football, and has supplanted Dynamo Kyiv as Ukraine's pre-eminent team, winning four of the past six titles.

Leader of the Batkivschyna All-Ukrainian Association and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has said that she has been placed under a taboo on all Ukraine's central television channels, except Channel 5 and TVi, Channel 5 reported.

 That's certainly a possibility. As Yuriy Lutsenko discovered, Yanukovych is focused on shutting down the opposition through legal and administrative means. Taras Kuzio makes clear in this article for Radio Free Europe, if the new government were committed to anti-corruption it would have conducted a broader audit by a more impartial auditor.

The October 2010 audit could not be classified as impartial, as it was undertaken by a law firm (Trout Catcheris) that represents Donetsk oligarch Renat Akhmetov in the United States. The audit team included Kroll Associates, who was hired in 2002 by Viktor Pinchuk, Serhiy Tihipko, and the Trudova Ukrayina Party (now renamed Silna Ukrayina) to cover up Kuchma's alleged involvement in the disappearance and murder of journalist Heorhiy Gongadze.

Moreover -- especially since Yanukovych was elected president -- no court trial or criminal investigation could be fair and in accordance with the rule of law. Ukraine's judicial system became even more corrupt during Yushchenko's presidency than it was previously. The independence of the judicial system under Yanukovych has ended.

Instead it used the audit as an excuse to weaken Tymoshenko and her allies.  This year will test how committed the EU is to democracy in Ukraine or will it allow the country to slide into authoritarianism in the name of friendly relations?

Two years ago, five of the ten new East European members of the European Union – the three Baltic states, Hungary, and Romania – appeared to be devastated by the global financial crisis. Social unrest, huge devaluations, and populist protests loomed.

And then nothing. Today, all of these countries are returning to financial health and economic growth without significant disruption. No country has even changed its exchange-rate regime. Old Europe should learn from New Europe’s untold success.

First, a bit of rubbish. Anders Aslund writing on the eastern Europe states who, he claims, have been successful in dealing with the economic crisis. Curiously he doesn't mention Ukraine, probably because its currency collapsed and its economy sharply contracted. Aslund also forgets to mention the IMF, its boosted resources for combating the crisis or even the EU's bailout of Ireland and Greece.

As Paul Krugman recently posted about Estonia, success is a relative term. 

But the cost of the adventure so far has included a Depression-level slump: GDP is growing again, but only after falling 18 percent. The IMF projections only go out to 2015 — and even then, the Fund expects GDP still to be below its 2007 level. Unemployment, having risen to almost 18 percent, is expected to remain above 10 percent into 2014.