By John Helmer, Moscow In the Polish capital of Warsaw a fortnight ago, Igor Kolomoisky met secretly with Yulia Tymoshenko. The reason for the secrecy is the terms of exchange which they discussed. These include Tymoshenko’s agreement that if she is elected president in Kiev in eight months’ time with Kolomoisky’s support, he will get […]

Filed under: DwB by Editor - Sunday, July 29th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow The International Monetary Fund has decided to delay fresh loan payments of $3.4 billion to Ukraine. In the meantime the World Bank has given the Deposit Guarantee Fund in Kiev $500 million to keep the leading Ukrainian banks solvent. The two international agencies have also agreed to the seizure of $174 […]

Filed under: Oligarchs, Ukraine by Editor - Wednesday, December 2nd, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow In Kiev on Sunday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko complained that he isn’t getting cash from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) fast enough. Christine Lagarde, the IMF’s managing director, told him to stick to the Fund conditions, but she also promised to go soft on whether the IMF will stop the money […]

Filed under: Ukraine, US-Russia by Editor - Sunday, September 6th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has decided to give the Ukrainian banks R&R&R – that’s rest from regulation and refinancing. Inspection of the foreign exchange book, unwinding related-party credits, recovery of non-performing loans, and obligatory recapitalization, which were all conditions of the Fund’s 2014 Ukraine loan, have been relaxed. The new […]

Filed under: Russian Politics, Ukraine by Editor - Monday, March 16th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has told the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that his government cannot raise bilateral financing from the European Union (EU) or the NATO allies, and now requires $50 billion, triple the $17 billion agreed with the IMF last April. At a meeting on Wednesday in Davos, Switzerland, with […]

Filed under: Russian Politics, Ukraine, US-Russia by Editor - Wednesday, January 21st, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow In the picture, the President of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, an American, is applauding as the Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), Valeriya Gontareva, beats a dead horse. For the metaphorically minded, the dead horse is the Ukrainian banking system. For the literally minded, Gontareva claims the […]

Filed under: Ukraine by John Helmer - Friday, September 12th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow Bank robbers of the manual, stick-up type have a reputation for a sense of a humour. That may be a comfort to them, because they usually get caught. Bank robbers of the International Monetary Fund type lack even a sense of irony, because they expect not to be caught, and never […]

Filed under: Ukraine by John Helmer - Wednesday, September 3rd, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow The Ukrainian revolution has been very bad for business in the country. But for Igor Kolomoisky’s Privatbank there has been compensation of almost a billion dollars in state funds: publicly, rival Ukrainian commercial banks call that favouritism; privately, Ukrainian business as usual. Privatbank is Ukraine’s largest commercial bank. Since the replacement […]

Filed under: Ukraine by John Helmer - Tuesday, June 24th, 2014
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