Ukraine Unlikely to Avoid Default – Lawmaker

The head of the foreign affairs committee of the lower house of Russia's parliament claims that Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s statement that the country will not default was far from reality.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s statement that the country will not default was far from reality, head of the foreign affairs committee of the lower house of Russia's parliament Alexei Pushkov said.

On Sunday, Yatsenyuk said Ukraine would be unlikely to default as the government had a plan to stabilize the country’s economy.

"Yatsenyuk promised Ukrainians that there would be no default. Western agencies write that default is inevitable. Somehow there is a feeling that they are closer to the truth," Pushkov wrote on Sunday in his official Twitter account.

On August 27, Ukraine’s Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko announced that Kiev had reached an agreement with private creditors to write down 20 percent in Ukrainian bonds’ face value, among other measures.

Since the beginning of an armed conflict between government forces and militia in the country's southeast in April 2014, Ukraine’s national currency, the hryvnia, has been devalued almost threefold, while the country’s GDP has been continuously decreasing.