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AFP: The International Monetary Fund said yesterday it will only release a new tranche payment to Ukraine once parliament approves a long-stalled pension system overhaul and land privatisation legislation. The IMF said after completing its latest mission to the war-torn country that Ukraines economy was continuing to recover from a dire recession and was on course to expand by more than two percent of gross domestic product this year.

Ukraine is using a US$17.5-billion (15.6-billion-euro) IMF lifeline to recover from crises sparked by a Russian-backed war in the separatist industrial east that began in April 2014 and has claimed more than 10,000 lives. The loss of industries in the war zone and flight of foreign investors saw the former Soviet republics economy shrink by 17 percent in 2014-2015. But the IMF now expects Ukraine to achieve sustainable growth by cutting the expense of a pension system that accounts for nine percent of gross domestic product and supports about one third of the population. It also wants land sales approved by a parliament in which the government holds only a slim ruling majority and where opposition to the proposal is strong. The IMF said its discussions focused on the pending pension and land reform and on measures to speed up the privatisation process. Securing parliamentary approval of these draft laws will be needed to pave the way for the completion of the fourth review, it said in a statement. Ukraine has so far received only US$1 billion of the US$4.5 billion it hopes to see from the IMF this year. A spokesman for the global lending body told AFP that the size of the next tranche payment would be determined by the IMFs Executive Board after the legislation in question is passed into law. Overall, Ukraine has received US$8.3 billion from the IMF since the package was approved in February 2015. Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has prepared a pension overhaul plan that will undergo further reviews before being submitted to parliament. Senior officials had said they do not intend to tackle the land privatisation issue until 2018. London-based emerging markets economist Timothy Ash said opposition forces in parliament led by former premier Yulia Tymoshenko could use the land reform issue as a pretext for trying to oust the government. Tymoshenko might still use the land issue to call a vote of no confidence in the Groysman government -- waiting for the time of optimal political tensions domestically, and land reform efforts could do the trick, he wrote in the Kyiv Post.

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IMF sets tough new Ukraine loan demands - Daily Mirror

A drought in Ukraine could be the weather shock that sparks a grain price rally, says an analyst.

AccuWeather forecasts hot and dry weather developing in Poland, the Baltic States, Belarus and Ukraine this summer with severe impacts on agriculture.

We do expect drought conditions across much of Ukraine, which may damage crops, meteorologist Tyler Roys said in a news release.

This drought, combined with any damage to crops from the cold snaps of late spring, could yield a smaller crop and in turn lead to crop shortages and price increases across the rest of Europe.

A recent rainfall eased current soil moisture deficits in north-central Ukraine, which had re-ceived less than 50 percent of normal rainfall over the previous 90 days, according to the U.S. Department of Agricultures latest Weekly Weather and Crop Bulletin.

More rain will be needed to fully ease the impacts of this springs acute dryness, stated the report.

Rainfall in other parts of the country helped maintain good to excellent prospects for the winter wheat crop and improved soil moisture for the planting of summer crops such as soybeans and sunflowers.

In a separate report, the USDA said dryness last fall delayed planting of Ukraines winter wheat crop, but unusually deep snow cover fully replenished subsoil moisture reserves in the spring and protected crops against frost damage.

However, if drought develops over the summer, it could quickly change the fortunes of Ukraines winter and summer crops, and that could be the weather woe grain markets need to ignite a rally. The winter wheat harvest begins in July and corn harvest begins in late September.

Global grain prices currently reflect ideas that there will be ample grain production this year and total supplies will be bolstered by large supplies carried in from the 2016-17 crop year.

To significantly lift prices, a serious cropping problem is needed in a major production region.

Drought in Ukraine has a lot bigger impact on the market than does drought in the United States, said Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist with INTL FCStone.

Historically, we find a much stronger correlation when there is a weather issue there than if theres a weather issue here.

He has no scientific explanation for why that is the case, but he has a theory. He believes U.S.-based fund managers pay more attention to headlines overseas than ones at home.

They get tired of hearing farmers complain here in North America about the problems, and so they kind of become numb to hearing complaints and it means more when it comes from over there, said Suderman.

Ukraine was the worlds fourth largest exporter of corn and sixth largest exporter of wheat in 2016.

It was also the third largest exporter of rapeseed-canola. Reuters reports that Ukraines rapeseed exports are poised to explode this year. It quotes UkrAgroConsults forecast of a 60 percent rise in 2017-18 to 1.65 million tonnes because of a 70 percent increase in production.

As a result, a significant drought in that country could help lift the prices of a number of key crops. Suderman said a rally would likely start with corn.

If you combine (Ukraines drought) with the reduction in corn area in the United States and in Europe, then that starts to tighten things up a little bit, he said.

World corn ending stocks are expected to be a bloated 223.9 million tonnes at the end of 2016-17, but China holds 45 percent of the supplies and the U.S. another 26 percent.

Outside of those two countries, corn stocks are fairly tight, amounting to a 42-day supply of the crop, said Suderman.

Corn and wheat prices are closely linked, so he believes there would be upward pressure on wheat prices, especially if Ukraines winter wheat crop sustains damage.

Australias wheat crop is also under threat because of El Nino, and damage from a spring blizzard that dumped 250 to 500 millimetres of snow on the U.S. winter wheat crop might be more extensive than originally reported.

One of our people went back to the area late last week, and from the roads things look nice, but you walk in the fields and theres a lot of problems. Its getting worse, said Suderman.

The big funds are heavily net short in the wheat market, meaning they hold a preponderance of short positions that pay off when the market falls. Any weather-related rally that would force the funds to scramble to cover their short positions would exaggerate the rally.

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Forecaster sees drought for Ukraine - Western Producer

On the night of December 8, 2013, demonstrators were gathered in Kievs Bessarabska Square. For two weeks there had been protests across Ukraine against President Viktor Yanukovychs pro-Russian government, and on that wintery Sunday, some dissenters found a symbolic target for their frustration. Primarily aligned with the nationalist Svoboda party, the protestors tore down the 11-foot-tall statue of Vladimir Lenin that had loomed above the square since 1946, and battered it with sledgehammers.

The toppling of the Bessarabska Lenin led to a phenomenon that has become known as Leninopad, or Leninfallthe removal of Lenin statues from around Ukraine. Of course, it wasnt the first time Soviet monuments had been brought low, as statues had been destroyed as early as 1990. But in the following months the intensity increasedso much so that in February 2014 alone, a total of 376 statues were torn down.

Ukrainians had a lot of statues to work with, but their efforts were diligent and comprehensive. In 1990, when Ukraine declared its independence from the Soviet Union, there were 5,500 Lenin statues around the country, more than in any other former Soviet republic. With the countrys 2015 decommunization laws, which outlawed communist symbols including statues, flags, and Soviet-era place names, there was a mandate to remove the last of the Lenin monuments. Today, none still stand. But they havent disappeared.

The afterlife of these statues is the subject of the new photobook from Fuel Publishing, Looking for Lenin. Photographer Niels Ackermann and journalist Sbastien Gobert started the project by searching for the remains of the Bessarabska Square Lenin, and they ended up photographing toppled Lenins across the country. Their goal was not just to see where the physical embodiments of the Soviet past had ended up, but also to discover how Ukrainians felt about the ongoing process of decommunization.

We met scores of people who wanted to discuss the subject, writes Gobert in the book. The name Lenin loosened tongues: for, against, indifferent, nostalgic, vindictiveeveryone had an opinion about Dyadya Vova (Uncle Vlad).

The Lenins that Ackermann and Gobert foundfigures that had previously towered on plinths as a mark of Soviet authoritynow fill car trunks, are hidden in the woods, or are stashed in cleaning rooms. Here is a selection of images of the physical and symbolic remains of Ukraines past.

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The Hunt for Ukraine's Toppled Lenin Statues - Atlas Obscura

Ottawa Citizen

Hepburn: NATO must offer an ultimatum to Russia Get out of Ukraine Ottawa Citizen A picture taken on April 6, 2015, shows Lida Antonova, 79, collecting corn in a field near the village of Petropavlivka. As a tenuous ceasefire brings a lull to Ukraine's yearlong conflict between pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian troops. NATO must ... and more »

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Hepburn: NATO must offer an ultimatum to Russia Get out of Ukraine - Ottawa Citizen

The experiences of Ukraine and Libya have taught other vulnerable countries around the world not to surrender their weapons of mass destruction under pressure from the west, according to Dan Coats, President Trump's director of national intelligence.

"Unfortunately, the lessons learned have been if you have nuclear weapons, never give them up, because it's a deterrent from other actors who may want to interfere in your country," Dan Coats told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "If you don't have them, get them."

Coats referred specifically to Ukraine and Libya as cautionary tales for "rogue" and "marginal" states that might feel vulnerable. Ukraine agreed in 1994 to surrender its Soviet-era nuclear weapons stockpile in exchange for a pledge from the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia that none of the countries would violate Ukrainian sovereignty.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin sent forces to annex Crimea, a region of Ukraine, and backed a separatist-movement in the eastern part of the country in 2014.

"And so we see what's happened in Ukraine probably would not have happened if they had maintained a nuclear weapons capability," Coats said.

And in Libya, the late dictator Moammar Gaddafi finally dismantled his weapons program, after years of sanctions and the George W. Bush-era invasion of Iraq. But Libya was eventually overthrown by western powers in 2011.

He noted that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un "believes that regime survival is dependent solely on becoming a nuclear power," and that this drives home his point around the world.

"We, unfortunately, tend to be moving in the wrong direction as countries around the world think that gaining nuclear capability is a protection," Coats said. "Or, potentially, it could be used for offensive capabilities."

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Dan Coats: Ukraine, Libya taught other countries to seek nuclear weapons - Washington Examiner