RFE/RL's Radio Svoboda has done an interview with Wojciech Balchun, a Polish businessman and rock star who was selected as the new head of Ukrainian railways. Balchun, who has a Ukrainian grandfather, has promised to quickly learn Ukrainian.
Ukraine's new finance minister on his next steps in IMF talks
(Reuters) Ukraine could ask the International Monetary Fund to revise the criteria under which it disburses loans to Kyiv, the new finance minister, Oleksandr Danyliuk, said in a newspaper interview published on April 16, without providing specifics.
After months of stalling, Ukraine urgently needs to conclude talks with the IMF to unlock $1.7 billion in new loans that the government will receive in exchange for reforms and ending widespread corruption.
Ukraine's economy shrank by nearly one-tenth last year under the impact of a Russian-backed separatist conflict in its eastern industrial heartland. Inflation has eased but still stood at more than 20 percent year-on-year in March.
Danyliuk took office on April 14 in the biggest political shakeup in Ukraine since the 2013/2014 Maidan street protests brought a pro-Western leadership to power, displacing a U.S.-born technocrat who had been favored by Washington.
The new government, headed by Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroysman, has sought to reassure Ukraine's Western-backers that reforms will not veer off track.
"For obvious reasons, the priority number one is the resumption of cooperation with the IMF," Danyliuk told the Ukrainian weekly Zerkalo Nedeli, promising to strengthen the role of his ministry as an "engine of reform."
"If we ensure the growth, but we do not fit a little bit in the framework of the IMF, then during the negotiations, I think, it is realistic to achieve the revision of the criteria," he said.
(...)
(lightly edited for style)
Putin comments on changes regarding his special representative for the crisis in Ukraine
(Interfax) Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied that the recent decision on removing Boris Gryzlov, the special presidential representative on the Ukraine crisis, from the Russian Security Council might imply the lowering of the level of Russia's mediation in the Ukraine settlement process.
"No. We simply met with him recently and agreed that he, as my special representative, would focus his work precisely on this track related to the settlement in southeastern Ukraine," Putin said in an interview shown in a Saturday news program hosted by Sergei Brilev on Rossia-1 (VGTRK) television channel, when asked whether the decision to remove Gryzlov from the Security Council meant that Russia would attach less priority to its mediating efforts in Ukraine.
Putin pointed out that, as Gryzlov is no longer a permanent member of the Russian Security Council, "he would not have to be distracted by regular Security Council meetings, which are often routine."
Barring any major developments, that ends the live blogging for today.