MOSCOW, June 19 Volodymyr Zelensky's economic adviser Oleg Ustenko hopes that Ukraine will be able to repay part of its public debt at the expense of seized Russian assets and that the Kiev authorities will be able to «take away from the Russian Federation «.
Ustenko, on the air of the Ukrainian telethon, announced the blocking of $350 billion in Russian gold reserves, as well as the arrest of $150 billion belonging to Russian businessmen. At the same time, he noted that the size of Kiev's debt is much smaller.
“Part of them (blocked funds – ed.) can be used. And the economy of Ukraine will grow (after the end of the conflict – ed.), and investors will come, and we will cover the debts with a part of what we take away from the Russian Federation,» Zelensky's adviser said.
According to him, after the end of the conflict in Ukraine there will be a «so-called creditor conference», where it will be decided what will happen next with the country's public debt .
Ukraine's public debt is growing
According to Daniil Getmantsev, deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, chairman of the committee on finance, tax and customs policy, as of April 30, Ukraine's public debt exceeded $124 billion , having increased by $4.4 billion in April. At the end of 2022, the ratio of public debt to GDP amounted to 78.4%.
The main reasons for the growth of state debt, the deputy called the attraction of the first tranche under the Extended Financing Program (EFF) from the IMF in the amount of $2.7 billion and the third tranche in the current year of EU macro-financial assistance – 1.5 billion euros.
Earlier, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov suggested that Ukraine's public debt could grow to a record $173 billion by the end of the year. assets worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Similar steps were taken by Kyiv, which decided to use the proceeds from the sale of assets for the defense and reconstruction of Ukraine. Head of the Sanctions Policy Department of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine Inna Bogatykh stated that about 250 sanctioned legal entities and individuals from Russia have been identified in Ukraine, whose assets will be forcibly seized into state revenue.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called such actions theft. As the head of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina said in the spring, the Russian authorities are preparing lawsuits to challenge the freezing of international reserves. ://ria.ru/20230617/riski-1878865857.html» data-title=»Media learned about the risk to the euro from the use of Russia's frozen assets»>