FX.co ★ Russia’s new loan to Ukraine comes to light

Had Kiev signed an association deal with the European Union, the western states would have offered it at least €20 billion help, The Financial Times said on December 18, citing the EU documents.
And, as an EU anonymous source has it, €20 billion is a prudent estimate. Kiev would have received this amount from the International Monetary Fund if all the strict requirements had been met.
EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fule said December 18 that Brussels is awaiting details of the agreement Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovich signed the day before. It should not breach the obligations of Ukraine to the EU if the country’s government is planning to carry on with membership talks suspended in late November of this year.
At the same time, Brussels favours any trade agreements between the two countries. December 19, Ukraine’s leader Yanukovich boldly suggested that his country could be both as a supervisor at the Belarusian-Kazakh-Russian Customs Union and an associated member of the EU, Interfax informs.
December 17, Moscow decided to give Kiev a financial lift of $15 billion expecting a 5% annual return. Russia is to take these funds from the official sovereign wealth fund National Welfare Fund. What is more, Gazprom trimmed the natural gas price for Ukraine to $268.5 per 1,000 cubic meters.
Commenting on the developments, Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the Russian Duma's foreign affairs committee, said on Twitter that Russia rendered Ukraine real financial help, while the Europeans put forward a merely diminutive offer.
The EU was ready to sign an association agreement with Ukraine on November 27-28 in Vilnius, but Kiev put the negotiations on hold allegedly due to Russia got in the way and Brussels refused to provide financial assistance to the struggling Ukrainian economy.