Ukraine is forced to pay much higher interest for IMF loans than it had to do last year

By Michael Pröbsting, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 16 June 2023, www.thecommunists.net

Western politicians and media don’t tire to proclaim their “unlimited” solidarity with the Ukraine which suffers from the horrific consequences of Putin’s invasion. However, while NATO imperialism welcomes the heroic defense of the Ukrainian people against the Russian occupation forces – as it is directed against their Eastern rival – Western financial institutions are equally eager to make big bucks at the expense of the very same people.

Such reports Danilo Hetmantsev – a member of the Ukrainian parliament and head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Taxation, and Customs Policy – that while “the previous cost of IMF loans exceeded approximately 1% annually, whereas it now stands at 4.8%.” ^[1]

Such fact demonstrates the cynical approach of American and European imperialism. Western leaders cry crocodile tears about the tragic fate of the Ukrainian people. And indeed, the Ukraine has experienced gigantic destructions both in a human as well as in a material sense. Tens of thousand of people have been killed. More than 8 million Ukrainians – mostly women and children – were forced to flee the country and several millions more live as displaced people within the country. As we reported recently, a new study by a Ukrainian research institute reveals that the total population actually living in the country has declined to 29 million (compared with 52 million in 1991). ^[2]

However, while the Ukrainian people are fighting, fleeing, and dying, Western financial institutions like the IMF view this situation as an excellent opportunity to make big bucks. Hence, the IMF raised the costs for loans by nearly five times within a single year! As the well-known saying goes, war is a profitable business!

This fact confirms once more the RCIT’s analysis of the Ukraine as a capitalist semi-colonial country which has been super-exploited by imperialist states and corporations – both from the West as well as from the East – since many years. [3]

The only solution is to fight for a Ukraine which is free from foreign occupation as well as from imperialist super-exploitation, i.e. for an independent and socialist Ukraine!

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