Joy of a Victory: Ukraine Wins London Court Appeal on “Russian Bonds”

UKRAINE - In Brief 14 Sep 2018 by Dmytro Boyarchuk

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So, London judges finally recognized that politics was important part of a $3 billion deal between ex-president Victor Yanukovitch and Russian authorities. For Ukraine that’s a critical turning point in all disputes about Russian aggression and damages that Russian military intervention created. I suspect, that ‘Salisbury attack’ played important role for this new view on Ukrainian story. For the sake of justice, I want to say that Ukraine did not plan to pay this debt anyway. It’s politically impossible to complete such a payment because of the war. The only possible scenario, if the decision was different, that Kyiv and Moscow make clearance on Gazprom’s $2.56 billion debt to Naftogaz. Now Ukraine is in much more interesting position. What’s more, prospects of other lawsuits against Russia look more promising. Still this victory hardly changes anything in terms of our mid-term prospects. For the election year Ukraine will be on a thin ice and the fifth wire from the IMF under EFF program will be much more encouraging news for us.