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 Months of political turmoil in the run-up to the cabinet reshuffle
- the biggest since an uprising in 2014 brought in a pro-Western
leadership - have derailed efforts to root out corruption, delaying
billions of dollars in foreign loans.
"Overall, I go home encouraged by the commitment of all the
political forces to continuing and accelerating reform, economic
reform, anti-corruption reform, in particular judicial reform," she
said at the end of her first official visit to Kiev since the
political shakeup earlier in April.
Former prime minister Arseny Yatseniuk resigned two weeks ago and
was replaced by Volodymyr Groysman, a close ally of President Petro
Poroshenko.
 "Obviously corruption is still a very deep problem. It's time to
start locking up people who have ripped off the Ukrainian population
for too long," she said.
Nuland called for greater political unity, insisting Ukraine must
"stay the course" with a $17.5 billion bailout program from the
International Monetary Fund, whose third tranche of $1.7 billion has
been delayed since last October.
Pro-European reformists in Ukraine have previously expressed concern
that the latest political reboot will not eliminate the influence of
powerful business interests on policymaking.
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Nuland said further U.S. financial assistance to Ukraine - a third
$1-billion loan guarantee is in the offing - would depend on the
government sticking to the IMF program.
(Reporting by Matthias Williams; Writing by Alessandra Prentice;
Editing by Tom Heneghan)
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