Saturday, October 25, 2014

Russian news: Ukraine: A Trillion Here – A Trillion There - Russia Insider

As the military situation in Ukraine grinds to a stalemate, the still more desperate economic plight comes to the fore, laying bare the culpable folly of European diplomacy.

In an earlier posting we had suggested that the unification of Germany could serve as a benchmark for the potential cost of any attempt to keep the implicit promise to Ukraine of EU accession, tossing out a guesstimate of one-half trillion Euros – an obviously impossible sum in the context of a European continent sliding into renewed recession.

In a recent paper, Carnegie’s always incisive Dmitri Trenin has suggested that the actual cost of the reunification of Germany was closer to E1.5 trillion, albeit over a period of 23 years. While this latter number is almost certainly closer to the mark, given the realities it is no more than a substantial rounding error; Mr Poroshenko’s trip to Washington – from which he returned with a generous $52 million – suggests that the likelihood of Ukraine receiving anything like either number is identical – precisely nil.

That's $50 mmm...million, with an "M"

Since independence modern Ukraine has been at best a semi-functional state, stumbling along on legacy assets while no government, whether nominally pro-Russian (Yanukovich) or pro-western (Timoshenko/Yushchenko) made any meaningful attempt at real reform.

This is hardly surprising – the various governments represented nothing more than the coalesced interests of one or the other oligarchic faction, themselves the ultimate beneficiaries of systematised corruption and inefficiency, which they have no conceivable interest in combatting.

Complete story at - Russian news: Ukraine: A Trillion Here – A Trillion There - Russia Insider

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