WoE: Whither Ukraine in 2021

bne IntelliNews

Ukraine has been on a rollercoaster ride this year. After the wild optimism following the election of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the hectic reform legislative drive of the first six months of his administration, the whole programme seems to have been derail and the IMF programme has de facto been suspended thanks to back racking. With money in the bank and solid macro fundamentals, for now, Ukraine will get to the end of this year ok, but with a heavy debt repayment schedule in the second half of 2021 there is no way the country can cope without kissing and making up with the IMF. Ben Aris, bne IntelliNews editor-in-chieftalked to two of the leading experts about the details of Ukraine's economic health and the prospects for getting through another year ahead. This is the podcast version of a webinar that can be found on YouTube here. Ben Aris, editor-in-chief, bne IntelliNews Elina Ribakova, deputy chief economist of the Institute of International Finance (IIF) Evghenia Sleptsova, senior economist for Russia CIS at Oxford Economics