New Ukrainian prime minister: $37 billion in aid, $70 billion overall gone to "off-shore accounts".
Ukraine's new prime minister Arseny Yatseniuk on Thursday accused the government of ousted President Viktor Yanukovich of stripping state coffers bare and said 37 billion dollars of credit it had received had disappeared.
Speaking in parliament before he was appointed head of a national unity government, Yatseniuk said that in the past three years "the sum of 70 billion dollars was paid out of Ukraine's financial system into off-shore accounts over the past three years".
"I want to report to you - the state treasury has been robbed and is empty," he said. "37 billion dollars of credit received have disappeared in an unknown direction," he added.
The situation was so grave that there was no other alternative but to take "extraordinarily unpopular measures," he said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/27/us-ukraine-crisis-money-idUSBREA1Q14Q20140227
A public statement like this does not make it true but Yanukovych left a lot of documents behind. I suppose he might have fled Ukraine because he has a few billion dollars 'invested' for his retirement. Why stay and fight, when you have a comfortable retirement lined up. I wonder if the state treasury's balance sheet took a sudden drop in the last few weeks as the rats were preparing to desert a sinking ship.
It will be a long legal battle, but I hope Ukraine is able to pursue restitution of this money if it is proven to have been stolen. Now that Russia has agreed to allow Yanukovych to live there, at least he will not be a financial burden on Russian society. 
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