FACTBOX: Key facts on Ukraine's finances and politics

(Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund approved a $16.5 billion loan programme for Ukraine late on Wednesday that includes monetary and exchange rate policy shifts to ease strains from the global financial crisis.

Following are key facts about why Ukraine is vulnerable to heightened risk aversion among international investors.

POLITICS

* Ukraine has been plagued by political turbulence since "Orange Revolution" protests in 2004 brought to power President Viktor Yushchenko and a team committed to moving closer to the West and joining NATO and the European Union.

Rows pitting Yushchenko against his former ally Yulia Tymoshenko, who twice served as his prime minister, undermined the "orange" camp and brought down governments.

Although the president dissolved parliament last month and called a December parliamentary election, he has since suspended that decree and a vote this year now seems unlikely.

* Upheaval -- and trouble forming a stable ruling coalition -- reflect Ukraine's longstanding division into the nationalist west and center, which looks to the EU and United States, and the Russian-speaking east and south, friendlier toward Moscow.

* Relations with Russia, bumpy throughout the post-Soviet period, have sunk to unprecedented lows over Yushchenko's denunciation of Moscow's military intervention in Georgia. Ukraine depends heavily on Moscow for energy supplies.

CURRENCY POLICY

* The hryvnia currency hit an all-time low of 7.2 to the dollar on October 29, weakened by growing global risk aversion and regional tensions after Russia's conflict with Georgia.

* Authorities have said they will formulate a new mechanism which would unify the market, cash and official rates.

* In mid-2008, the hryvnia had strengthened as far as 4.5/$, after the central bank abandoned a policy of keeping it in a corridor of 5.00-5.06 per dollar within a 4.95-5.25 band.

FINANCES

* Foreign exchange reserves fell to $33 billion at the end of October from $37.5 billion end-September, when they covered 3.7 months of imports.

* The current account deficit more than quadrupled in the first nine months of this year compared with the same period last year to $8.4 billion, or 5.8 percent of GDP.

* Analysts based outside Ukraine forecast its current account deficit at $21-25 billion, or 10-12 percent of gross domestic product, by year-end; Ukraine-based analysts give lower forecasts of about 6 percent of GDP.