MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal has reportedly requested an emergency meeting to be held in January with Kiev’s donors due to “exceptionally high uncertainty” over the country’s budget.
The development was reported by US media, citing the politician’s letter sent this month to the multi-agency Donor Coordination Panel.
“To uphold macroeconomic stability, it is imperative that we receive sufficient, prompt, and predictable external financing, beginning January 2024,” the official reportedly emphasized.
“It is hardly possible to hold any discussion about recovery and rebuilding projects, when we struggle fulfilling the 2024 survival priorities.”
According to the media, the Kiev regime is unable to fulfill social obligations without urgent foreign financial support.
“We cannot wait till March to finance our social needs,” Shmyhal stressed.
A girl walks past a heavily damaged residential building in the town of Irpin, on April 21, 2023. – Sputnik International, 1920, 16.12.2023
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Moreover, Ukraine’s Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko earlier this month complained that the country is going to experience severe financial difficulties as early as January 2024.
“In January-February the adopted decisions are insufficient for us to cope on our own,” the minister claimed.
On Thursday, Ukrainian Economy Minister Yuliya Sviridenko said that if next year’s funding from the EU and the US is delayed, the country’s residents may be deprived of social payments. At the same time, she said that in the short term, the government will follow an alternative plan in the first few months.
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Media previously quoted Sviridenko as saying that Kiev might refuse to pay pensions and salaries to civil servants for the sake of spending on the defense sector in case it fails to receive funding from Western partners.
In her turn, Ukrainian Social Policy Minister Oksana Zholnovych noted the government may cancel the planned indexation of pensions from March 1 if Western partners do not send financial aid.
In late November, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a draft law on the state budget for 2024 with a deficit of more than $43 billion. At the same time, the document allocates $8 billion less for defense than this year, Ukrainian MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak claimed.
According to Marchenko, Ukraine received more than $42 billion of international aid in 2023.
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Republished by The 21st Century
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