In recent days, numerous governments have announced financial as well as military support for Ukraine, as it faces a devastating Russian invasion and an exodus of refugees already counting well over 1.5 million.

Such reliance on outside help is not new. Since the 1990s Ukraine’s economy has lagged badly behind other former Eastern bloc countries, and — under the effects of global crisis, the pandemic and the war ongoing since 2014 — it has repeatedly turned to loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Commission. Yet this lending was far from just altruism. Servicing the debt became an ever bigger share of public spending, and the loans also came on condition of specific policies designed to foster a “better business environment” and cut back the residual welfare state.

As Elliot Dolan-Evans notes at OpenDemocracy, even the European Commission’s announcement of €1.2 billion support for Ukraine on February 21, just before the invasion, referred to unspecified “structural policy measures” in exchange for loans. Now, Ukrainian activists are calling for the cancellation of Ukraine’s foreign debts. Not having to service these debts won’t alone be enough to save Ukraine. But it is important in ensuring that, when they have reconquered their independence, Ukrainians won’t be even more dependent on creditors or domestic oligarchs over whom they have no control.