As the June 30 deadline looms for a final nuclear deal framework that will allow Iranian sanctions to be lifted, President Hassan Rouhani expressed his optimism in the current situation, saying a deal was “within reach.” However, two issues remain thorny for nuclear deal pessimists, in particular the wording of Rouhani’s tentative endorsement of inspections…
Ukraine has threatened to issue a debt moratorium and cease making payments to creditors if terms favorable to the government are not reached by the end of June. This latest piece of news comes as the Ukrainian government continues debt restructuring negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, although with a deadline fixed at the end…
The IMF’s Deputy Managing Director David Lipton gave a statement on default risks and creditor relationships that suggests the organization will continue to support Ukraine even if it decides to follow through on the threat of last month’s legislation allowing it to ignore payments to creditors like the consortium of institutional investors like Franklin Templeton…
The G-7 has again begun to mull tougher sanctions on Russia. The catalyst for the discussions is an alleged outbreak of Russia-fueled violence in eastern Ukraine. There has been increasing amounts of coverage of certain areas of eastern Ukraine in which a perceived buildup of Russian military equipment has been able to reach separatists in the…
The G7 Summit ended today in the Bavarian Alps, and the heads of state of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the US issued a proclamation of solidarity on sanctions again the Russian Federation and committed to keep them in place and have their duration be “clearly linked to Russia’s complete implementation of the…
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development announced that it will lend $1 billion to Kazakhstan in 2015. The $1 billion lent constitutes the largest amount the EBRD has ever allocated to Kazakhstan, something it attributes to a growing and diversifying economy. Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev in part based his campaign for reelection on the…
The Russian Presidency is allocating an enormous amount of “secret” funds for a military buildup, the largest since the end of the Cold War. The federal budget that is black, or authorized but not itemized, has doubled since 2010 to 3.2 trillion rubles (or $60 billion) according to estimates by a Bloomberg affiliate. Putin may…
Despite some encouraging signs related to Ukraine’s economy, the International Monetary Fund issued a statement yesterday saying that the Ukrainian economy has declined sharply as a result of the conflict, and that it may continue to do so should sporadic instances of fighting in eastern Ukraine continue. IMF Mission Chief Nikolay Gueorguiev has spoken in…
The ruble has slid to its lowest point in five weeks after the CBR suspended its foreign exchange auctions in order to keep the value from going too high. Specifically, the CR suspended the sale of its one-year foreign currency repurchase agreements, purposefully focusing any remaining investor attention on high-yield ruble-denominated assets. The CBR is…
The head of the International Monetary Fund is in Kiev to gauge the impact of the IMF’s $17.5 billion stimulus on the Ukrainian economy. Thus far, indications have been positive, according to Nikolay Gueorguiev, who has stated specifically that the project has been well implemented and that “stability is taking hold.” The second, $2.5 billion tranche…
STEPPE DISPATCHES 