Courtesy of Mish.
Here’s a brief update from “Ellen” who lives in Lviv, a city in Western Ukraine.
Hello Mish
We have quite a panic over the collapse of currency. People buy any food product that can be stored. Everyone wants to rid of Hryvnia. We haven’t seen anything like this since 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. Stores are empty.
It is hard to say what exchange rate this days, somewhere between 34 and 42
There were riots in downtown today. A group of protesters was beaten up by police. They marched through downtown and gave a last warning to government officials. Next time they said they will shoot some officials.
Ukraine is on a brink, but the West is not in a hurry to give us money. Perhaps they want something. Maybe they know the money will end up with corrupt officials who will steal it.
Either way, the few billion dollars they promised in March won’t save our economy, not after this panic started.
Best wishes
Ellen
Strategic Food Reserve Empty
A curious thing happened today. To quiet protests over food, president Petro Poroshenko ordered the minister of the food reserve to fill the shelves of stores with flour, sugar, canned meat, and buckwheat from the reserve.
Well guess what? There was no food in the reserve. It has either been looted (like the vanishing gold), or it was fed to the army.
Here is a nice translation from Russian by J. Hawk: Ukraine’s Strategic Food Reserve…Runs Out Of Food.
Ukrainian food prices are rising at a rate faster than in the ‘90s. But the Yatsenyuk government is still blaming the situation on the ignorance of the population and speculation by supermarket chains….
