Financial sector news

Ukraine's new four-year cooperation program with the International Monetary Fund (2026–2029) envisages a need for external financing of $65 billion. This was announced by the chair of the parliamentary Budget Committee, Roksolana Pidlasa, following a briefing with the IMF's permanent representative in Ukraine, Priscilla Tofano.

“The IMF thinks in medium-term categories. The new cooperation program with the IMF will be designed for four years—2026–2029. And, indeed, the IMF preliminarily estimates Ukraine's unmet need for international financing for four (four!) years at $65 billion. This funding gap is unevenly distributed over four years, because we currently have the fewest agreements for 2027. And from 2028, the European Commission plans to allocate €100 billion for Ukraine in the 7-year EU budget, and this is already taken into account as a certain agreement on financing," Pidlasa noted.

According to her, the funding gap is unevenly distributed: the fewest agreements are currently in place for 2027, while from 2028, the European Commission plans to allocate €100 billion for Ukraine in the seven-year EU budget, which is already taken into account in the forecasts.

Pidlasa stressed that the IMF conducts the most in-depth analysis of Ukraine's budget needs among all international partners. She also recalled that earlier, the government estimated the unmet financing needs for 2026-2027 at $37.4 billion, but this figure has increased due to higher expenditures in 2026.

“The key factor in the forecasts is the duration of the war and defense spending. It is practically impossible to predict the situation for 2027, so the priority now is to cover the $18.1 billion shortfall in 2026,” the MP said.

She stressed that it is critically important for Ukraine that the EU and G7 countries decide on the format of support in a timely manner, otherwise the government may face liquidity problems as early as the first quarter of 2026. The formats of assistance may vary, from the continuation of the ERA loans mechanism to new instruments, in particular a “reparation loan” involving the use of frozen Russian assets, or bilateral assistance from partner countries.

Earlier, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko estimated Ukraine's total external financing needs for the duration of the new IMF program at $150-170 billion, including $45.5 billion for 2026.

The current $15.6 billion EFF program, approved in March 2023, provided for total external financing of $115-140 billion, but due to the protracted war, the figures were revised to $153-165 billion. At the same time, according to the Ministry of Finance, Ukraine has already received more than $145 billion in international financial assistance over the past 3.5 years, of which more than $30.6 billion is planned for 2025, with a target of $39.3 billion.