IMF mission arrives in Kyiv
Photo: IMF mission arrives in Kyiv (Getty Images)
An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission has arrived in Kyiv. It will be working in Ukraine over the coming week, Ukraine’s Alternative Executive Director at the IMF, Vladyslav Rashkovan, reports.
“We arrived in Kyiv with the IMF team late in the evening, and spent part of the morning in a bomb shelter. Ready to work. Many meetings are scheduled," Rashkovan stated on the morning of September 3.
According to the Alternative Executive Director at the IMF, the mission will be working in Ukraine for the next 7–8 days.
New IMF program
The IMF mission will not be making a decision on disbursing a new loan tranche to Ukraine. At the end of June, following the eighth review of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program with the IMF, a decision was made to merge the ninth and tenth reviews. They were originally scheduled for late August and early December 2025, but now a single ninth review is planned for the fourth quarter of this year.
It is not ruled out that the IMF may decide on a new program for Ukraine due to the prolonged war. This could be one of the issues IMF officials will discuss with the Ukrainian government during the mission.
The IMF traditionally also assesses the realism of state budget parameters, which the government must submit to the Verkhovna Rada by September 15.
First Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Sergiy Nikolaychuk said that Ukraine may receive a new IMF program with a longer time horizon, which would become a logical continuation of the current one.
The current IMF program with Ukraine, running from 2023 to 2027, provides $15.6 billion from the Fund and about $150 billion from partners.
Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko stated that Ukraine needs a new program.
In August, NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyy said in an interview with RBC-Ukraine that “the format of the current program no longer fully meets today’s (Ukraine - ed.) needs.”
Furthermore, Ukraine’s Finance Minister Serhii Marchenko noted on August 18 that there is currently no clarity regarding a new IMF program. According to him, there is a high likelihood that Ukraine will continue under the current program, but also a high likelihood of approving a new program with the Fund. The key factors will be negotiations and the duration of the war.
