Azarov: New IMF terms for Ukraine – get ready to die right after retirement

“Reaching retirement, prepare for grave.” This is how Nikolai Azarov, the former prime minister of Ukraine, commented on new terms of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for Ukraine to receive the next $1 billion tranche.

In a Facebook post, Azarov analyzes the requirements of IMF: “First, they demand raising the retirement age for men to 65 and for women to 63. The pension insurance period is to total 35 years. Second, the moratorium on farmland sales is to be cancelled and an agricultural market is to be established. They have made a number of other requirements, but it is senseless to speak about them, unless the above two are implemented.”

“According to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, the average life expectancy for men is 65.2 years and for women – 75.5 years, and we are on the 122nd place in the world in that indicator. Kyrgyzstan, Honduras, Moldova, Egypt, Columbia, Algeria have left us behind. It’s a shame!” Azarov writes. “How can we raise the retirement age to 65, if the average life expectancy of men is 65.2 years?”

“As a person who had occupied the post of the prime minister for four years and knows the situation in the country, I would send the IMF and its requirements to the hell and find a way out even now, from this extremely heavy situation,” the former prime minister of Ukraine says. “And one billion dollars, and even five billion dollars, will not settle any of Ukraine’s problems, unless the country is set on the path of economic development. In 2012, our export of goods and services have ensured over $90 billion for us. Compare that amount with the miserable $1 billion.”

“We can and must settle our problems by our own. The Kiev regime and its Western patrons is the key obstacle to this. If the people manage to oust them from power, the country have future. Otherwise, it is doomed to impoverished existence and demise,” Azarov said.