European political leaders are quick to offer moral support but are in no position to offer the concrete economic assistance Ukraine needs and that the opposition, should it come to power, would require in order to stave off a short-term economic crisis. One reason why S&P downgraded Ukraine was their assessment that Ukraine would not be able to pay its debts if the expected financial support from Russia is not realized and no alternative funding sources can be found. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is lobbying other European capitals to put together a more comprehensive aid package for Ukraine, but the expectations of some European leaders that Russia can be persuaded to let Ukraine go through with its EU association agreement while continuing to offer Ukraine a financial bailout and lower prices for natural gas seem quite fanciful. The history of the recent crisis in Ukraine is one of miscalculations: the EUs belief that Russia would not oppose Ukraine signing an association agreement; Yanukovych believing that he could repudiate the agreement with no political cost (which sparked the EuroMaidan protests in the first place) and then assuming that he could use the crisis to strengthen his governments power—which revitalized protests that had begun to lose some of their enthusiasm). The risk now is that the opposition will fall prey to miscalculations—particularly about how easily or quickly Ukraine can recover from crisis should they force Yanukovych from power. Nikolas K. Gvosdev
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 05:04:17 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015