The EU is currently paying out installments on its two-year €90 billion loan to Ukraine, but Kyiv is asking for the money to come faster to fill the budget gap. “The funds are needed this fall … especially given the mobilization that the enemy is planning right now,” Defense Minister Evgeniy Khmara urged this week.
But before releasing more funds, Brussels wants Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, to complete crucial reforms that are part of the country’s roadmap to eventual EU membership.
“As reforms in the Rada progress, more budget support too. We have €37 billion still available in this calendar year,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote after meeting Zelenskyy at the U.N. General Assembly earlier this month.
Kyiv, for its part, is also putting pressure on Brussels to revisit the more than €200 billion in Russian central-bank assets immobilized across the EU. “We need our friends, our European politicians, to be brave enough and to make some bold actions,” said Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhii Marchenko.
Next year looks even more fraught.
Marchenko told donors in Brussels this week that Ukraine would require $52.6 billion in aid in 2027, while about $32.6 billion remains unfunded.
“Ukraine has no reserve funds to cover its entire spending. If we fail to get external financing, we’re facing a strong cut of all non-priority expenditures — and could even extend to protected expenditures,” said Myronenko, the economist.
“If we don’t have the actual cash in our accounts, we won’t have the means to pay military salaries, pensions, and so on. So, if there is no international aid, then everything will be very bad,” she added.