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By John Helmer, Moscow Polish figures and former officials who have been leading the campaign for Polish financial and military aid to the Ukrainian Government in Kiev may have been lobbyists for Igor Kolomoisky’s PrivatBank, when he was trying to obtain a Polish banking licence. Documents sent and received by PrivatBank, just published in Warsaw, […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow The new finance minister of Ukraine, Natalie Jaresko, may have replaced her US citizenship with Ukrainian at the start of this week, but her employer continued to be the US Government, long after she claims she left the State Department. US court and other records reveal that Jaresko has been the […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Bank robbers of the manual, stick-up type have a reputation for a sense of a humour. That may be a comfort to them, because they usually get caught. Bank robbers of the International Monetary Fund type lack even a sense of irony, because they expect not to be caught, and never […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow The Ukrainian revolution has been very bad for business in the country. But for Igor Kolomoisky’s Privatbank there has been compensation of almost a billion dollars in state funds: publicly, rival Ukrainian commercial banks call that favouritism; privately, Ukrainian business as usual. Privatbank is Ukraine’s largest commercial bank. Since the replacement […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow The International Monetary Fund’s senior officials have known that Stepan Kubiv, Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, was removed six years ago for his involvement in a massive bank loss and loan diversion, when Kubiv was in charge of Kredobank, a west Ukrainian bank owned by PKO Bank Polski, the […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is preparing to release Privatbank, the largest commercial bank in Ukraine, from independent tests of its solvency and capital adequacy, and allow a bailout of the bank with Ukrainian public funds, backed by the IMF. The Ukraine mission of the IMF has also revealed this week […]