The Next President of Ukraine is Going to Have a Lot of Stuff to Deal With

Surprising almost no one, Yulia Tymoshenko, the twice prime minister of Ukraine who was freed from a prison hospital hours after her long-term rival Viktor Yanukovych fled the country, announced on Thursday that she is running for president in the country’s upcoming election.

Tymoshenko — who lost an earlier bid to the presidency to Yanukovych in 2010, and was later convicted of embezzlement and abuse of power in charges that Western critics called political — is as popular as she is divisive. Her candidacy promises to spice up a running field that already includes a former boxer and a chocolate magnate.

But whoever will take home the presidency on May 25 won’t only have to deal with a country that was just amputated of Crimea, and is facing ever-friendly Russian troops on that border and to the east, along with the increasing pressure of Russian Ukrainians hoping to join in on secessionpalooza.

The next president of Ukraine will also take on a country suffering the consequences of years of corruption and mismanagement, currency devaluation and a flat economy on the brink of a sharp plunge. As if that weren’t bad enough, there’s also the country’s exorbitant debt — which just happens to be the problem that sort of started all of this in the first place.

Not to mention, Ukraine depends almost entirely on Russia for its energy supply — and Russia’s energy supply to Western Europe depends on pipelines that run through Ukraine.

There are some bonuses for the future president, including the open arms of the US and Europe. And Tymoshenko, or whoever defeats her in the election, will also get the $27 billion in lifesaving funds the international community has promised to the country in exchange for ditching Russia for the West’s graces.

Watch all of the VICE News dispatches Russian Roulette: The Invasion of Ukraine here.

The International Monetary Fund announced on Thursday that it would front about $14 to $17 billion of those funds. That’s either a bit less or a bit more of the $15 billion bailout deal Yanukovych signed with Russia last December — after finding conditions for a European lifeline too “austere.” Ukrainians opposed to that deal with Russia took to the streets in protest, and the rest is history.

The US also promised an additional $1 billion loan to Kiev, and the EU threw in an extra $850 million to be disbursed over the next few months — if Ukraine goes through with the IMF-imposed measures, that is.

But let’s face it: no matter how much financial aid it gets, if Ukraine is forced to crowdfund its army in preparation for a possible war with Russia — which, incidentally, they would totally lose — the country’s economy is not in good shape.

As interim Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk optimistically told parliament, “Ukraine is on the edge of economic and financial bankruptcy.”

That’s unless Ukraine passes some serious austerity measures, a precondition to the IMF unlocking funds to its rescue. On Wednesday, officials in Kiev announced a staggering 50 percent hike in gas prices, and promised more cuts to other energy subsidies.

You can just imagine how popular that — and more drastic measures to come — are going to make any politician forced to make those decisions.

But Tymoshenko herself seemed upbeat about the prospect of being that politician.

In the video below, the former prime minister, unusually without the braided hairdo that has long been her trademark, announced her candidacy at a press conference.

“With the fall of authoritarianism, we received the ability to build the country from scratch, to mold it,” she said. “If our effort in building a democratic Ukraine is successful, we will not just change the country — we will change the world.”

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko announced her run for president on Thursday.

Tymoshenko also promised to return Crimea to Ukraine, take down the country’s oligarchies, and tackle corruption. She said she is more qualified than any other candidate, and flaunted her time in jail as an experience that brought her closer to the suffering of the Ukrainian people.

She also pledged to address the economic discontent that brought Ukrainians to the streets in the first place.

“For 22 years politicians have been filing anti-corruption laws in parliament, getting grant money from Western governments and reporting back… But nothing has really changed in 22 years, and corruption has remained a part of our lives,” she said. “I must stand for president because I am the only person who has realistically shown how to end corruption in all spheres.”

But early responses to her candidacy were lukewarm, and polls put her behind other Maidan-friendly candidates.

Tymoshenko also raised a few eyebrows earlier this week, when an expletive-filled phone call was posted online, in which she talked about “wiping out” the Russians. She hit back that her words were edited to change the context.

Yulia Tymoshenko went on an expletive-filled tirade against the Russians in a “leaked” phone call.

Whether it is Tymoshenko or someone else, the next Ukrainian president will have plenty of work to do.

A possible consolation? Moscow is not doing all that well either, and the Crimean annexation is coming at a cost. Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev admitted on Thursday that the economy is slowing, with the World Bank saying it could shrink up to 1.8 percent if the Russians don’t deescalate tensions over Crimea.

And that seems nowhere in sight.

Follow Alice Speri on Twitter: @alicesperi