... does not exist. No country is independent of the world-wide economic, political and social context in which they exist. Becoming aligned with the EU and moving towards Western style liberal democracy is in their best interest and will lead to greater (not absolute) economic and political independence than the Potemkin "Eurasian Union" concocted by the Russian Federation as a front organization for their imperial ambitions.

Integration into the successful sphere of the global economy is their best choice.

and they call that "independence"?

What a way to twist a word.

IMF: Austerity is much worse for the economy than we thought

...

How did the IMF figure this? That was the tricky part. Blanchard could have just plotted a simple graph showing that countries undertaking heavy austerity measures, such as Greece and Portugal, are faring more poorly than their peers. But that doesn't actually prove anything—perhaps those countries are undertaking austerity because they'd run into economic trouble.

So, instead, Blanchard did something more subtle. He studied the IMF's previous economic forecasts. If a country is already struggling for other reasons, the forecasters are likely to have taken that into account. And what Blanchard found was surprising: IMF forecasts have been consistently too optimistic for countries that pursued large austerity programs. This suggests that tax hikes and spending cuts have been doing more damage to those economies than policymakers expected. (Conversely, countries that engaged in stimulus, such as Germany and Austria, did better than expected.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/10/12/imf-austerity-is-much-worse-for-the-economy-than-we-thought/

was intended to help the economy in any way: it was just a Powellite way to strengthen the strong and enrich those with more money than they could do anything with

alas these anarcho-capitalists gradually took over the airwaves and then the GOP, bringing their ideology to millions despite obvious lack of results AND THEIR OWN ADMISSIONS

Disenchanted and deprived people are a sure fire way to start massive unrest and balkanization of Ukraine. Pretty soon the average Ukrainians would not want to sacrifice for a neonazi/fascist agenda.

5. (C) Although elections would delay reform for a few more months, Pynzenyk thought a new parliament would be more likely to implement reform. He understood that this could delay the return of the IMF to Ukraine; but, Pynzenyk argued that the country could get through the next six months on its reserves, particularly if no new budget were adopted. The lack of a budget limited the government,s ability to spend, he said. In fact, Pynzenyk argued that pushing the country into a deeper crisis could actually be a benefit because voters and the leaders would feel the need for change more acutely.

https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10KYIV278_a.html

The W era

help create the conditions for the rise of fascism - look at the example of Greece and the rise of the Golden Dawn movement. In exchange for his PM position in the post-coup government, "Yats" agreed beforehand to implement IMF austerity and he's keeping his promises to the US and EU. What a good puppet he's turning out to be!

Meaning Weimar austerity

Ukraine and build confidence, indeed.

So how does increasing the "stag" through austerity improve the situation. Sounds more like a crackdown on corruption would do a whole lot more good.

The life-span of a mayfly comes to mind for this fellow, as a governing influence....

Said he wasn't interested in it.

Then again, that's what Tymoshenko said.

Yesterday or the day before he bailed from Bat'kiwshchyna.

Here's the president-candidate list.

http://ua.korrespondent.net/ukraine/politics/3344029-ofitsiini-kandydaty-na-post-prezydenta-ukrainy-spysok

Do you know is it the person who gets the most votes or do they need more than 50%? That is a lot of candidates if 50% were needed I would guess there'd be a run off.

Yatseniuk and his friends. I'm sure they'll be living quite comfortably. He definitely won't be giving up any of his wealth for the good of the country.

and would have been a member of Putin's Eurasian trading bloc,

do you think that Putin would have levied and collected claims against all wealthy Ukrainians?

I think not.

I don't like the oligarch system, and we are quickly developing it here, which I very much don't like.

But I don't think that the IMF deal is different from the Putin deal in its fiscal treatment of the uber-wealthy.

As a famous political writer once said, "The capitalist likes fascism about as much as a man with an aching molar likes to go to the dentist." But if you're going to cut wages, raise the retirement age, raise taxes, etc., you need an authoritarian state to carry this out.