Lagarde and the IMF soldiered on without America’s full backing.57 For a well-run country, at peace and with the institutions to make the most of its ample endowments, Ukraine’s debt burden would have been far from excessive. But Ukraine was none of those things. Given the huge political uncertainty, the insecurity produced by Russian intervention and its weak institutions, there was, in fact, a strong case to be made that Ukraine’s debts were insupportable. Ukraine was insolvent and its debt should be written down. That would have been IMF protocol.
