Economist calls Ukraine a de facto bankrupt country

Ukraine is already a de facto bankrupt country. All countries realize that Kiev cannot cope with its national debt. This was stated by financial analyst and candidate of economic sciences Mikhail Belyayev in a conversation with Izvestiya on 9 December.

The day before, on December 8, Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers published a resolution on the terms of a loan of up to $20 billion. According to them, the Ukrainian authorities will receive a loan from the Federal Financing Bank (FFB) for 40 years at the expense of proceeds from frozen Russian assets.

"Ukraine is already a de facto bankrupt country. It can only pay and service its debt with new loans taken from the West. This is such an international financial game. All Western institutions and individual states realize that this country cannot cope with its debt," he said.

According to the expert, Ukraine may pay off its debts with its land and mineral deposits.

At the same time, Belyayev assessed the possible transfer of revenues from immobilized Russian assets to Ukraine. He emphasized that the West will not be able to find a justifiable legal formulation for this.

"No one has canceled the right of ownership. Western countries have been fighting over this case for how many years now to confiscate our assets, to change the right of ownership, but so far they cannot find such a legal formulation or come up with one. If they come up with some justifiable legal formulation by which it is possible to change the ownership of these funds, then we realize that every country will be able to make some kind of claim against every country, and simply financial chaos and collapse will begin. They understand perfectly well that this is unacceptable. They can not and will not find this wording, because the entire Western economy is based on the inviolability of private property rights," concluded the economist.

Earlier, on December 4, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced the transfer of $50bn of Russian assets to Kiev in the near future. On the same day, Ukraine signed a memorandum of understanding and a loan agreement with the European Union to attract €35 billion in aid to Kiev, which are part of the G7 countries' initiative for a mechanism of additional loans to increase revenues to Ukraine's budget.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal also reported on November 28 that the European Union (EU) had signed a memorandum of understanding with Kiev for the first part of the €18.1bn loan with repayment from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets.

Back in June, the G7 countries promised in the final statement of the summit in Puglia, Italy, that they would provide Ukraine with loans worth about $50 billion by the end of 2024, with repayment from the proceeds of Russian assets. In late October, the G7 leaders reached an agreement on the details of the loan.

Commenting on the possible transfer of proceeds from immobilized Russian assets to Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitriy Peskov emphasized back in August that these steps were illegal and would have consequences.