Early this year, a wave of ‘tariff protests’ swept Ukraine’s rural settlements, towns and small cities. The protests, organised largely spontaneously, were often accompanied by road closures, and were actively fueled by opposition TV channels.
The Ukrainian government has since backtracked and headed off the protest campaign by returning state regulation of energy prices in the country’s municipal utilities sector. But it has paid a political price for this move, and perhaps postponed a further public reckoning over utilities prices.
In mid-February, an International Monetary Fund mission left Kyiv without approving the renewal of the stand-by loan programme for Ukraine. According to the IMF, one of the stumbling blocks was the government’s inconsistent introduction of market tariffs for utilities.
