With the IMF team from Washington in Kyiv, many analysts believe that compromise formulas were worked out in advance for raising household gas prices and keeping the budget deficit to 2.5% of GDP for the year.

With the IMF team from Washington in Kyiv, many analysts believe that compromise formulas were worked out in advance for raising household gas prices and keeping the budget deficit to 2.5% of GDP for the year. Timothy Ash writes from London: “One assumes some deal has been done around gas prices, and fiscal adjustment for 2018. Given the many prior false dawns around this particular review, I cannot imagine the IMF team would have wanted to waste time in Kyiv, only to come back disappointed.” Ash estimates that $1.9 billion in disbursements [are] linked to this particular review.”