Fixed Income
Quotes for Ukrainian Eurobonds bounced back somewhat after three weeks of consecutive losses. Unfortunately, we do not see any strong fundamental reasons for the recovery, as the news flow was mostly negative. Ukraine’s industrial production figures released for February were the first hard evidence that the trade blockade with the occupied territories is harming the country’s economy. The past week brought also dramatic negative headlines regarding a fire, probably due to sabotage, at an ammunition warehouse facility in Kharkiv province used to supply the Donbass war zone. Also, even more disturbingly, Russian opposition politician Dennis Voronenkov was assassinated in central Kyiv in the middle of the day on Mar 22 in an attack that President Poroshenko immediately blamed on the Kremlin. The benchmark long-term issue, Ukraine-27s, rose 1.9% to 91.9/92.6 (9.0%/8.8%), while the shortest sovereign, Ukraine-19s (due in 30 months from now) was flat at 101.6/102.0 (7.0%/6.8%). The VRI der
