Some good news for Ukraine.
An International Monetary Fund official says he is "impressed" by Ukraine's plans for economic changes and measures to avoid bankruptcy and defaulting on its debts.
David Lipton, the IMF's first deputy managing director, met in Kyiv on December 13 with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and financial officials.
Lipton said after the meeting that he was "impressed by their vision for an economic transformation of Ukraine and by their commitment to decisive, front-loaded implementation of their reform agenda."
Poroshenko said in a statement on his website that he assured Lipton of Ukraine's commitment to IMF's austerity demands.
Lipton said a team from the IMF -- which has given Ukraine some $17 billion in financial aid in the past two years -- will finish technical discussions with Ukrainian financial officials by the end of next week.
The Russian TASS news agency has published this item on the closure of airports in eastern Ukraine:
KIEV, December 13 -- Ukraine’s state aviation service has suspended flights to and from three major airports - Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye - for security reasons, a local daily has said with reference to the service’s chief, Denis Antonyuk.
The measure is effective starting from [midnight] on Saturday, December 13.
Antonyuk said “security considerations” were the reason. He did not elaborate.
This is not the first time the Ukrainian state aviation service closes Ukrainian airports to flights. Air links with Donetsk have been disrupted since May. Flights between Kharkov and Moscow were banned last May, too, and between Dnepropetrovsk and Moscow, in December.
(TASS)