Kristalina Georgieva: IMF will review new program for Ukraine if peace talks are successful

The new 48-month Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for Ukraine worth about $8.1 billion (SDR 5.9 billion), approved by the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund on Friday evening, will be reviewed immediately if peace talks are successful. This was stated today by the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, in a press release of the Fund published on its website.

''Under the program, the authorities commit to addressing long-standing obstacles to growth, including by fighting corruption, promoting the formalization of economic activity, tackling tax avoidance and evasion, reforming energy markets, and strengthening financial market infrastructure“, Georgieva said.

She noted that thanks to skillful policy design, supported by the previous EFF 2023 program and exceptional financial assistance from international partners, the Ukrainian authorities have maintained overall macroeconomic and financial stability, made progress in mobilizing domestic revenues, advanced on some critical reforms, and restructured the commercial external debt.

''The economy has recovered, inflation has been contained and reserve buffers have been rebuilt. However, the war has negatively affected economic and social conditions, slowing growth, and the outlook remains highly uncertain“, the IMF chief described the current state of affairs.

She also announced that a significant group of the Fund's shareholders, including Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States, reaffirm their status as priority creditors of the Fund for Ukraine's debt and are committed to providing adequate financial support to ensure Ukraine's ability to meet its obligations under the new expanded EFF program.

''The risks to the EFF agreement are extremely high. The success of the program will depend not only on the continued support of the international community, which will help close the fiscal and external financial deficits and restore debt sustainability, but also on the authorities' unwavering determination to implement ambitious structural reforms and their readiness to take additional measures if necessary“, concluded the IMF Managing Director.

A four-year EFF program with the IMF for $15.6 billion has been in effect since March 2023, with the next, 9th tranche of SDR 1.117 billion ($1.6 billion) planned for December 2025.

Initially, the current program provided for the total amount of external financing for Ukraine with the participation of international partners of $115 billion in the main option and $140 billion in the negative option, but as the war dragged on, these figures were increased to $153 billion and $153 billion, respectively. $165 billion.

During the work of the IMF mission in Kiev from September 3 to 10, 2025, the Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Sviridenko, together with the Chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine Andriy Pyshny and the Minister of Finance Serhiy Marchenko, officially addressed the IMF with a request for a new program. The need to consider such a program is due to the fact that the war waged by Russia is protracted, and the current EFF program is scheduled to end by March 2027.