OREANDA-NEWS. Ukraine may stop paying debts to foreign countries, citing the threat of a Russian "invasion". This was stated on February 17 in an article for the Glavred portal by Ukrainian economist Yuriy Gavrilechko.

As the expert recalled, on February 15, the United States offered Kiev sovereign loan guarantees in the amount of up to $1 billion to continue cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and support economic reforms.

“That is, in fact, this is a guarantee loan for Ukraine to return what it took from the IMF. Accordingly, like everything that we took from the IMF, these guarantees will not affect the development of the economy in any way. But on the contrary, it will affect its fall, because if you take money that does not develop, then they ruin it, ”the analyst argues.

Gavrilechko is convinced that new loan obligations are harmful to Ukraine, because the volume of debts is growing, and "not a penny" is spent on the development of the economy. He cited state statistics, according to which in 2022 Kiev will spend about UAH 600 billion, or about 60% of budget revenues, on servicing external debts.

“The only reasonable thing that Ukraine should have done now is, taking advantage of the unique opportunity when Western media write about the “Russian invasion”, referring to Western intelligence, stop servicing external debt (just like internal debt), stop paying on these debts. - he said.

Kiev can explain to the West that the risk of aggressive actions on the part of the Russian Federation is force majeure, which does not allow the “square” to pay off creditors.

“And if Ukraine agrees to this US proposal, this will mean that if Ukraine for some reason fails to pay the IMF debt, the US will do it for us and now we owe not the IMF, but the States, that the latter can use against us for their own purposes,” Gavrilechko added.