West accused of 'sleepwalking' as Ukraine edges towards crisis
Ukraine is teetering on the edge of collapse, but the West is "sleepwalking" in its response to the impending crisis, say observers. ● The West has made a catalogue of errors since Ukraine's fateful decision to turn its back on Russia, to which Moscow responded by launching a proxy war that has made Kyiv's already dire economic situation worse. The EU's Association Agreement with Kyiv, which commits Ukraine to moving closer to Europe, has not come with enough financial support to re-boot the economy. "There is a currently a major hole in the Western financing package for Ukraine of somewhere in the order of $10bn for the next six months," says Tim Ash, head of emerging markets research at Standard Bank. The Institute of International Finance (IFF), a global financial industry group, was also in Kyiv last week and came to pretty much the same conclusion. Despite a recent ceasefire with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv will suffer a "double-digit recession this year", the IFF said in a report.
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