By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
KIEV, Ukraine — The country is on the cliff of
bankruptcy. A spate of politically motivated killings and mysterious suicides
of former government officials has sown fear in the capital. Infighting has
begun to splinter the pro-European majority coalition in Parliament. And a
constant threat of war lingers along the Russian border.
A year after the election of Petro O. Poroshenko as president
to replace the ousted Viktor F. Yanukovych, and six months after the swearing in of a new
legislature, Ukraine remains deeply mired in political and economic chaos.
“Poroshenko, whether you like him or not, he’s not
delivering,” said Bruce P. Jackson, the president of the Project on
Transitional Democracies, an American nonprofit group. “The Ukrainian
government is so weak and fragile that it is too weak to do the necessary
things to build a unified and independent state.”
Efforts to forge a political settlement between the
government in Kiev and Russian-backed separatists who control much of the
eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk have hit a deadlock over procedural
disputes, despite a cease-fire in February calling for decentralization of
power and greater local autonomy as the linchpins of a long-term accord.
The shattered economy keeps sinking,
with the G.D.P. plummeting 17.6 percent in the first quarter of 2015. Hoping to
avoid default, senior officials have been in protracted negotiations with
creditors, but they have failed so far to secure a deal. Officials also now
fret openly that more than $40 billion pledged by the International Monetary
Fund and allies, including the United States and the European Union, will not
be enough to keep the country afloat.
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