Yatsenyuk: Crisis in Ukraine escalating

The leader of the Front for Change initiative, Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense Bloc MP Arseniy Yatseniuk, said that the crisis in Ukraine is escalating, rather than ending, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

"I clearly understand that the crisis will continue moving, and, as a rule, it has certain waves. The next wave of crisis usually comes in autumn or winter. The country has lost 30% of its GDP. Each year, we had average [GDP] growth of 5-6%. 30% means that we have actually lost nearly a decade of our development. We have returned to the pre-crisis figures of 1998," he said in Zaporizhia on Thursday, his press service reported.

Commenting on the economic situation in the country, Yatseniuk said that UAH 15 billion had not currently been reimbursed.

"This means that money was simply taken away from somebody and not returned. From whom was it taken away? Entrepreneurs or workers? Their money is not returned to show that the budget is being implemented… [But the budget is being fulfilled, because] taxes were simply collected several months in advance. We owe $105 billion to the rest of the world. This is several times the Ukrainian budget. Who will pay for all that? I'll tell you. It is we who will have to pay for all that," Yatseniuk said.

He said that apart from the return of foreign debts, any new Ukrainian government would face five major problems, particularly a politically split country, the absence of clear management, the absence of national unity, unformed political ideas, and incredible economic problems.