On Top of a War, Ukraine Faces a Mortgage Crisis

As central Kiev burned amid deadly street protests in February, Alex Bukovetskiy stopped paying off his dollar-denominated mortgage.

Kiev is calm now, but Bukovetskiy isn’t. He joined hundreds of angry borrowers at Parliament on June 19 to demand relief for holders of mortgages that bind the borrower to pay in dollars. Since the hryvnia lost 40 percent of its value following President Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster, the cost of making mortgage payments has ballooned. For Bukovetskiy, mortgage payments of $1,250 a month on his apartment now cost 14,912 hryvnia; they cost 6,250 hryvnia when he got the loan. “I don’t have that kind of money,” says Bukovetskiy, who dipped into savings to pay his mortgage after losing his marketing job. “I’m not hiding from my bank. But I want a compromise.”