Via OrientalReview.org,
Earlier this month while delivering a public lecture in Kiev, “The Challenges of an Ever-Changing World,” former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made an inspiring remark for anyone who might have been thinking that life in Ukraine was bad:
“You should go to Liberia where the standard of living is much lower, and then you will be thankful.”
Two years after the US State Department, and specifically Victoria Nuland, hand-picked Ukraine's next government in the aftermath of the Euromaidan riots which led to a coup and the ouster of then president Yanukovich and the appointment of a US puppet government led by the increasingly unpopular Arseniy Yatseniuk, tens of thousands of people in the Ukrainian capital came to various observances of the "Day of the Heavenly Hundred". a term which refers to those who died during the months of protests in Kiev that culminated with President Viktor Yanukovych fleeing.
Back in August, Ukraine struck a restructuring agreement on some $18 billion in Eurobonds with a group of creditors headed by Franklin Templeton.
Under the terms of the deal, Kiev should save around $4 billion once everything is said and done. That was the good news. The bad news was that Ukraine still owed $3 billion to Vladimir Putin. Here’s what we said at the time: