Original by Aleksandr Rodzhers published by news-front.info; translated from Russian by J.Hawk
This year was supposed to see a breakthrough. It is already taking place.
The Kiev regime has suffered a technical default. Debt restructurization is off (nothing will happen on October 27 because they are not even close to having a debtors’ committee quorum). On top of that there’s a pile of internal debts which are superficially invisible: 48 billion of tax refund debts, a pension fund deficit of 80 billion nryvnia, the Kiev municipal debt, several state banks and corporations are on the edge of default, and so on.
Which means that a billion or two will no longer suffice to save the “founding fathers of Ukraine’s democracy.” Kiev would need, at a minimum, $10 billion simply to sustain itself at its current level.
Even if such IMF tranches were in the pipeline (and they aren’t), they would suffice to save the Kiev regime. The IMF doesn’t want to throw money at what is obviously a hopeless situation, and is instead coming up with excuses for not giving Kiev the money it needs, such as accusations of corruption in high places (which has never bothered IMF before) or the absence of tax code reforms.
The condition of the banking system is indicative of the overall state of affairs. Contrary to Gontareva’s regular statements that “it’s all been stabilized,” in September the banks suffered losses to the tune of over 6 billion hryvnia. Several of them are about to be closed.
It snowed in Moscow in early October. It has been a very cool autumn and it promises to be a very cold winter. According to Gas Infrastructure Europe data, Europeans have begun drawing gas from storage facilities two weeks earlier than usual, on October 20. In 2014, they began to draw gas on October 27, in 2013 on November 3, in 2012 on October 26, in 2011 on November 1. At the same time, the level of reserves is lower than usual by approximately 10-15%.
Ukrainian gas storage facilities also have lower amounts of gas than usual. This problem cannot be resolved before the heating season begins (in Russia it has already begun, in Ukruine if they do turn on the heat, it will be right before the elections as a PR stunt) for technical reasons, and moreover there is no money.
As far as coal is concerned, following the arrest of LNR’s minister of energy who was illegally selling coal to Ukraine, that business has closed down as well (Avakov and Yefremov were the ones who benefited from it–nothing ideological, just business). Ukrainian powerplants have no alternative source of coal.
Concerning electricity, the moment of truth will come in a couple of weeks. Crimea will be connected to the Russian mainland by early November, which means there will be no danger of energy blackmail by Kiev.
Crimea also need not worry about a food blockade–nowadays even Turkey, a member of NATO (treason! treason! treason!) is supplying Crimea with food.
Overall, all the key energy indicators–gas and coal reserves, electricity generation capacity–suggest that Kiev is approaching this winter in a far worse state than last one. If the Crimea factor saved them last year, Russia effectively neutralized that factor this year.
Finally, the icing on the cake of financial collapse: the Kiev regime began issuing salaries in some places not in the form of money but securities. It is going to refund VAT taxes this way to the still-surviving entrepreneurs (because the junta wants to finish off the economy for good, without any survivors).
But the junta officials and deputies have already stocked up on dollars and got rid of the hryvnia, which means they are ready for the default. You can be sure that their homes will have heat and electricity no matter what.
