Noting the Russia threat has not varied much in recent months, Ash blames the higher interest rates on Ukraine’s “uncertainty in terms of the relationship with the IMF and foot dragging.”

Noting the Russia threat has not varied much in recent months, Ash blames the higher interest rates on Ukraine’s “uncertainty in terms of the relationship with the IMF and foot dragging.” He writes: “The price of stalling gas price hikes has been high, and is now expressed in the large premium demanded by investors for holding Ukrainian Eurobonds, relative to its EM peers. Ukraine’s ratios might be better than Egypt, but Egypt has almost faultlessly held to its IMF program, and benefitted from almost uninterrupted IMF credit disbursements…The lessons of all this, is that Ukrainian politicians need to recognize there are costs associated with their political decisions.”