Mark the Russian war dialogue to save our economy, Ukraine told West By Reuters

By Natalia Zinets and Matthias Williams

KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s president wants weapons and loans in a time of trouble with Moscow. But one thing the West does not want is more warnings about the panic that Russia is about to attack.

Western leaders such as US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson have been talking for weeks about a credible and urgent threat of a new Russian invasion of Ukraine after gathering troops near Russia.

Moscow says it has no intention of doing so and that it can deploy and drill its troops into its territory as it sees fit.

The warnings have taken the economic path. Since February 2015, the hryvnia to the Ukrainian currency has fallen to the lowest level against the dollar, and in January the bonds fell into the territory of severity.

“The constant and terribly moving message in the media about how a big war will start tomorrow, or tomorrow or tomorrow or tomorrow, poses economic risks,” said Mykhailo Podolya, an adviser to the president’s chief of staff.

“This speculative thing is putting pressure on investors, creditors and ordinary people. And that is exacerbating other economic indicators.”

According to a source familiar with their conversation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a recent call with Biden on Thursday underestimated the risk of a Russian attack and focused on the Ukrainian economy.

On Friday, Zelensky made it clear that he was disappointed with Biden’s war talks.

“I have a deep understanding of what is happening in our state (Biden) as well as a deep understanding of what is happening in the United States,” Zelenskiy said sharply.

“Do we have tanks on our streets? No. But if you’re not here you feel from the media that there’s a war. We don’t need this panic.”

Biden said it was more important for him to receive information about his situation than from the mediators.

Washington said earlier this month that the families of U.S. diplomats were being evacuated, urging them to continue in other countries, with Ukrainian officials publicly criticizing the move for being too early.

This criticism, a government source said, was also designed to calm the nervousness of the market.

“The billions we can spend on the military will not help us if we lose our balance and economic stability,” Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told parliament on Friday.

Zelenskiy’s top adviser told Reuters that what he called border “hysteria” had lifted Ukraine out of market debt, and that Kyiv had asked for a $ 5 billion aid package from friendly countries and organizations.

There is sympathy in Washington about how the Ukrainian leader should calibrate his messages.

“On the one hand he wants help, but on the other hand he needs to make sure that his people are in control of the situation. That is a difficult balance,” said a White House official.

Memories of the economic pain suffered in Ukraine eight years ago when Russia took Crimea and sided with the separatist uprisings in eastern Ukraine are fresh memories.

Analysts say Ukraine’s economy is more resilient now, but a senior official told Reuters that the government minister, the central bank and the president were holding meetings to assess the state of the market.