Ukraine leader meets Putin amid crisis

Ukraine’s embattled president Viktor Yanukovych returned to protest-hit Kiev on Saturday after holding crisis talks with his Russia counterpart and ally Vladimir Putin about a suspended Moscow bailout loan.

The chat late Friday on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi came amid growing pressure from the opposition on Yanukovych to cede some of his broad powers and appoint a new pro-Western government. 

Neither Russian nor Ukrainian officials disclosed the details of the two leaders’ conversation except to say that it was brief and held at Sochi’s Fisht stadium where the Games’ opening ceremony was held. ‘They had a conversation at the stadium.

There was no official bilateral meeting. That was not a part of (the president’s) programme,’ a Ukrainian administration spokesman said by telephone. Yanukovych had been expected to discuss with Putin the fate of a $15-billion Russian bailout whose delivery has been effectively frozen pending his decision on a new government. 

The sustained protests that followed have since then played out as a struggle for the country’s future between the West and Russia. Yanukovych must now decide whether to submit to protesters’ demands by taking a more conciliatory approach toward a new agreement with the European Union, a possibility that prompted Russia to suspend its bailout payments after issuing just one instalment of $3 billion in December. 

The Ukrainian leader has named his close ally Sergiy Arbuzov as acting prime minister and was expected to try and convince Moscow that the Kiev government was still committed to the terms of Putin’s bailout deal. 

Ukraine’s economy is in urgent need of assistance amid sliding domestic production and dwindling foreign reserves that can barely afford foreign payments of about $10 billion this year. The protracted crisis has seen Ukraine’s borrowing costs spike and the currency lose nearly 10 percent of its value amid a rush by frightened consumers to cut their losses by stocking up on dollars and euros. 

Several banks have reported dollar shortages and the central bank on Friday was forced to impose temporary exchange restrictions while moving the currency’s official exchange rate to 8.7 from 7.9 hryvnias, its first shift of the peg since July 2012. 

The central bank’s new control measures include a $5,500 monthly limit on the amount of foreign currency that can be obtained by individuals. Companies can buy unrestricted amounts of dollars and euros but have to wait at least six days to receive the foreign currency. 

The US is ready to provide Ukraine with financial support if Kiev implemented reforms needed to end the ongoing tensions, a US diplomat said. ‘We have had extensive discussions at all meetings concerning support from the international community, including the United States,’ Xinhua quoted US assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland telling reporters during a media briefing. 

Nuland met Ukrain president Viktor Yanukovych and opposition leaders Thursday to find out a solution to the prevailing political crisis in the ex-Soviet country. The diplomat said Kiev should conduct constitutional and electoral reform to de-escalate the crisis in the countr4y. The political turmoil in Ukraine was triggered by anti-government protests, which began last November in support of the country’s European integration.

Ukraine on Saturday launched a terror probe into a bid by an apparently drunk man to force an airliner flying to Turkey to land in Sochi where leaders were gathered for the opening of the Winter Olympic Games.

‘We have launched an investigation into an attempt to commit an act of terror and an attempt to hijack a plane,’ Ukraine security service (SBU) investigative department chief Maxim Lenko told reporters.

Lenko said the Ukrainian, who one official in Kiev said was ‘in an advanced state of drunkenness’ during the incident, had a personal dislike for the politics of President Viktor Yanukovych and his Russian counterpart and ally Vladimir Putin. Yanukovych’s ‘hands are drenched in blood’, the man said as he demanded the plane be flown to Sochi where the Ukrainian leader held crisis talks with Putin, according to Lenko.

The meeting on the sidelines of the Games’ opening ceremony focused on a prolonged political crisis in Ukraine that has pitted the interests of Russia against those of the West. 

The Ukrainian man, said officials said was born in 1969, brandished what he said was a detonator as he tried gaining access to the cockpit of an aircraft operated by Turkey’s Pegasus Airlines on flight from the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv with 110 people on board.