Tymoshenko loses support in Ternopil

This can’t bode well for the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc — in local elections, the queen is pulling only 8% in a region that once heavily supported her. Even the Party of Regions, an eastern Ukrainian party, garnered 11%.

Ukrainian political party Svoboda is posting election results as they come in.
Crossposted from Ukrainian Policy Daily

The great Ukrainian bride-hunt

Bride hunters are always easy to recognize in Kiev. They don’t have the polish of a Western businessman or the cheeriness of a missionary. Instead, they seem keyed-up, restless, and vaguely sheepish about their task. They know the whole business is seemy, but the allure of Ukrainian women is too strong. And who [...]

Naftogaz $4 billion dollars in debt

Ukraine’s state-run energy corporation, Naftogaz, is four billion dollars in the red. This in a country whose entire national budget is something like ten billion. $3.5B of this money is due by the end of the year — a challenging prospect at this point.
Speaking of gas and energy, here’s an analysis from Harvard [...]

Ukraine still the Wild West

The rule of law still has a way to go in Ukraine. According to Kyiv Post, the number of illegal corporate seizures spiked last year, with 2500 attacks logged by “corporate raiders.” These attacks took many forms, including “pressuring single shareholders, bribing managers and officials, creating artificial debts, falsifying the statutory and other [...]