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Activist Post
July 8, 2015
As Greece concludes its vote to reject IMF austerity measures and impossible “debt repayment mechanisms” and as the Puerto Rican debt cauldron bubbles off the shores of the United States, there is yet another country whose debts to private bankers, the IMF, and other “creditors” is about to come due – Ukraine.
Around the end of July, approximately $15.3 billion dollars of bonds will be due to be paid to a wide variety of creditors – government, IMF, and private holders. On July 26, however, Ukraine will be unable to pay the money it owes to those creditors.
Interestingly enough, when the Greek default hung in the air along with the possibility of the continued rejection of IMF austerity measures, compounded with the likelihood that the Greeks would begin to pursue a new policy of independence, sovereignty, and dirigism, the result was media and financier panic. That panic is not being played out over the Western airwaves when it comes to the question of Ukraine, however.
Indeed, another curious aspect to the looming Ukrainian default is the apparent haggling and scrambling on the part of the IMF to ensure that the country continues to implement austerity, pay its private creditors (except Russia), and pay the IMF while staying afloat, at least on paper. After all, when the Greeks announced (as the IMF later admitted in its own report) that the debt it owed was unpayable and unserviceable, the reactions from the IMF and the Eurogarchs were quite different – either make all the payments and implement all the austerity measures or face the wrath of the world financial elite.
