Happy New Year, Ukraine

Photo: © Lee Jae-Won / Reuters

This post inspired by: Ukraine officially defaults on $3bn debt to Russia; Moscow to sue Kiev in London court

That’s the thing about bonds, you see. If you issue them, the folk who buy them, lending you their money for a bit of interest, expect to be paid back when they mature in a fixed time period. They don’t expect you to default on that payment.

Ukraine has no money, we all know that. We all know whose fault that is, don’t we? It’s a little country whose initials are U and S and A. It is not Russia.

When Russia bought those bonds in 2013 to help Ukraine out, the situation was very different to today. Ukraine had a stable government. Crooked, but stable. Then along comes the good ol’ USA with its schemes to meddle wherever it can find a sneaky opening, and Biff, Bang, Kaboom, Ukraine is left a basket case, in debt to the IMF (the US banking arm) probably for ever. The IMF ensures that Ukraine is in no position to pay Russia back, and here we are on the first day of a new year (a year, incidentally, when catastrophe and mayhem looms large as the main features of the period) with Ukraine as first cab off the rank for the ‘Failed State of the Year Award’.

Happy New Year, Ukraine. Where are your backers now? Now you will find out who your real friends are, but you will need to shift your gaze a little more to the East than the West. Oh, and you will need to get rid of those Nazi bastards in your government.

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Happy New Year, Ukraine

Photo: © Lee Jae-Won / Reuters

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Photo: © Lee Jae-Won / Reuters

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