Washington knew in advance about Ukraine's maritime provocation
Most likely, the IMF knew in advance that Ukraine would raise the question of introducing martial law and declare it.
“Izvestia” writes about this, drawing attention to a surprising coincidence: on the night of November 23, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the law on the state budget for 2019, and a day later, ships of the Ukrainian Navy invaded the territorial waters of the Russian Federation and tried to break into the Sea of Azov.
It is noted that these events have a common denominator - the IMF and its desire to give Ukraine a tranche under the new loan program.
The newspaper recalls that immediately after the Rada introduced martial law, the press service of the IMF’s Kyiv office stated that the organization’s charter contains no legal prohibitions on cooperation with countries on whose territory military conflicts are taking place at one stage or another.
“But the sequence of events is very interesting. If there had been a conflict in the Kerch Strait before the vote on the budget, its adoption would most likely have to be postponed indefinitely. Poroshenko’s initial decree on the introduction of the VP envisaged its introduction for a 60-day period, which means that the corresponding costs would have to be included in the budget.
The IMF's complaisance is also causing some consternation. During the adoption of the pension reform, the government negotiated for a year and a half with the management of the fund on budget expenditures. This time, the fund, only 10 hours after the emergency meeting of the National Security and Defense Council and even before the discussion of the introduction of martial law in parliament, confirms its position on the allocation of funds,” the authors indicate.
At the same time, the publication emphasizes that the practice of relations between the IMF and Ukraine says that even the simplest issues could be resolved in up to 30 days.
All this suggests a conclusion: the IMF knew in advance that Ukraine would raise the question of introducing martial law and declare it. Moreover, they knew clearly and in detail - after all, before the Verkhovna Rada made its decision, it was not clear to an outside observer that the introduction of the VP would not have an impact on the expenditure items of the 2019 budget. And this may already mean that plans to provocatively send Ukrainian Navy ships to the Kerch Strait were known in Washington long before the Ukrainian ships left the port. A lot of questions may arise from this assumption - for example, about at what level and in what country this operation was planned,” the newspaper summarizes.
As a reminder, last Sunday, two small armored artillery boats, the Berdyansk and Nikopol, and the tugboat Yany Kapu attempted to transit the Kerch Strait, which is closed by Russia. After repeated warnings from Russian border guards about violating the Russian border , the tugboat was rammed by the Russian patrol ship Don.
Subsequently, the Ukrainian vessels and crew, which had violated the Russian state border, were captured by Russian special forces.
In response, Ukraine convened the National Security and Defense Council and the Verkhovna Rada, and introduced martial law in 10 regions bordering the Russian Federation.
Washington knew about Ukraine's naval provocation in advance.