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Kiev baits hook with guest ministers to lure aid givers

ZAMYATINA Tamara 
In Ukraine’s new government, which the national parliament (the Verkhovna Rada) voted for on Tuesday, three ministerial seats, including the offices of the economics and finance ministers, went to foreign nationals

MOSCOW, December 3. /TASS/. In Ukraine’s new government, which the national parliament (the Verkhovna Rada) voted for on Tuesday, three ministerial seats, including the offices of the economics and finance ministers, went to foreign nationals. To make that possible, President Petro Poroshenko hurried to adopt a special decree to fast-track the procedures granting his candidates Ukrainian citizenship. Russian experts have interpreted the appointments as a telltale sign: The authorities in Kiev have in fact agreed to external administration in hopes for financial aid guarantees from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union.

For more than a month following Ukraine’s October 26 parliamentary elections, conflicting teams of the president and the prime minister - the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s Popular Front - have conducted backstage bargaining over redistribution of ministerial portfolios. Yatsenyuk was demanding control of finance, the economy and internal affairs. The Petro Poroshenko Bloc found it possible to discuss Yatsenyuk’s nominees for ministerial posts only in talk shows.