Ukraine has no need to ask IMF for loan after Russian agreement

Ukraine has no need to ask the IMF for a loan after Russia offered the country a bailout worth $15 billion, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has said. "At the moment we have no need to ask the IMF for a loan, besides now we have additional advantages in talks with the organization," Azarov stated. If Russia hadn't offered the bailout, Ukraine would have been forced to accept IMF terms and then "both high gas prices and debts would have been pressing on us", the Prime Minister said. Azarov underlined that Ukraine would receive money from Russia without any preconditions as opposed to the IMF which is insisting on raising gas prices for the population, according to (The Voice of Russia). At the same time, Azarov added that Ukraine "is still willing to work with the IMF", but after gas prices have been reduced "there is no need to raise gas prices for the population" in accordance with the IMF's demands. If the government raised them it "had to socially protect 85%-90% of the population", the Prime Minister continued. The head of the Ukrainian government said that agreements with Moscow saved the country from bankruptcy. He also assured that these agreements are not threatening the Ukraine's independence in any way. "They enhanced our sovereignty and opened international markets to us which immediately reacted in a positive way to the deal," Azarov said. On Thursday, a session of the Russia-Ukraine Intergovernmental Committee headed by Presidents Vladimir Putin and Viktor Yanukovych took place. In the course of the session, a series of agreements was reached among which was those on reducing the price of Russian natural gas for Ukraine to $268.5 per 1,000 m3 and on Russia buying $15 billion worth of Ukraine's eurobonds.