Ukraine and the New Economic Cold War

This paper examines the politics of two rival loans to Ukraine, one from Russia and one from the IMF. While the Russian loan was made at the behest of the elected government of Ukraine as a gesture of solidarity between two closely intertwined post-Soviet economies experiencing similar difficulties, the IMF loan was not only a tool of vain US policy to retain purchase on fast-developing events in Ukraine, it was made in violation of the IMF's own rules. The loans form a critical chapter the contemporary transition from the geopolitical economy of US and Western dominance to one of multipolarity.