Wednesday 18 December 2013

Ukraine’s Yanukovich returns from Moscow on Akhmetov’s plane – and on a tight leash | beyondbrics - #EuroMaidan

Ukraine’s Yanukovich returns from Moscow on Akhmetov’s plane – and on a tight leash | beyondbrics:

"Viktor Yanukovich, the embattled Ukrainian president, flew to Moscow in comfort on Tuesday, taking a lift on the luxurious Airbus owned by Rinat Akhmetov, his long-time backer and the richest of Ukraine’s oligarchs. Yet it’s far from certain that, back in Kiev, Yanukovich was comfortable about his controversial $20bn bailout deal brokered with Vladimir Putin – or that Akhmetov was happy to have provided his plane for the trip.

Both men’s discomfort will have been exacerbated on Wednesday by news that the European Union had been ready to offer Ukraine $20bn in loans if Yanukovich had signed up to EU trade and association agreements as expected in late November.

Facing re-election in 2015 and keen to defuse four weeks of pro-EU protests at home, Yanukovich was aiming to land a bailout and lower gas prices to reboot his nation’s ailing economy. He has accomplished this, but at a huge cost for himself, for the next president of Ukraine, for the nation’s economy and for its future relations with the EU."

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