The Financial Times Thinks Ukraine’s Financial Meltdown Has Arrived

A stone’s throw from this weekend’s candlelight vigils in Kiev marking a year since the start of the demonstrations that toppled Viktor Yanukovich as president, a different kind of Ukrainian was out on the street: the black market currency traders.
“Selling dollars? I’ll give you more, I’ll give you 18,” said one man outside a foreign exchange booth offering 15.50 Ukrainian hryvnia to the U.S. currency.
The re-emergence of shadow traders last seen after the Soviet Union collapsed is a sign that – a year after the Kiev protests in which 100 people died in the hope of securing a prosperous, European future – the war-torn country is sliding once again into a financial crisis.
The hryvnia has plunged 50 per cent in value this year; international reserves are at barely six weeks of import cover, half the level seen as a prudent minimum; economic output is set to contract by at least 7 per cent this year.

This post was published at Russia Insider