The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) executive board has approved a $900 million disbursement for Ukraine from its $15.6 billion loan program. This decision was made just hours before IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The approval follows a staff agreement reached last month with Ukrainian authorities after the second review of Kyiv’s progress on a four-year Extended Fund Facility loan.
The IMF called for an “ambitious” external commercial debt restructuring in the first half of 2024, and JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock are happy to oblige. The IMF raised Ukraine’s growth forecast for 2023 to 4.5% and expected growth of 3% to 4% in 2024, citing the “remarkable resilience” of the economy. “Looking ahead, whereas the recovery is expected to continue, the outlook has significant risks stemming mainly from the exceptionally high war-related uncertainty,” Georgieva said in a statement. “It is also critical that external financing on concessional terms continue on a timely and predictable basis.”
The IMF has already spent $4.5 billion on Ukraine in 2023. America alone has sent over $100 billion and the president is threatening to send American troops to die if his latest $60+ billion spending package is not approved — $61 BILLION! Ukraine is anticipating a budget deficit of $43 billion for 2024 and needs America to foot the bill. Reuters called it “international donor fatigue” after reprimanding countries for not sending all of their reserves to Ukraine. The people are tired of these expensive war games and most are waking up and realizing that we cannot continue funding a losing battle.
