KYIV: Ukraine needs about $3 billion in foreign financial aid on a monthly basis to get through 2024, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said on Wednesday, highlighting the challenges Kyiv faces as US support begins to falter.
Marchenko said Ukraine’s macroeconomic stability during the war with Russia had been possible due to a steady inflow of international financial aid from Kyiv’s allies, something he added remained crucial this year.
“In 2024, the monthly need for external financing will reach about $3 billion. We cannot allow a delay in attracting external financing,” Marchenko said in a statement.
Ukraine has received more than $73 billion in financial aid from its Western partners in the two years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
So far this year the level of support has been much lower as major packages from the European Union and the United States have suffered major delays.
The EU finally approved its 50 billion euro four-year facility for Ukraine this month but the US financial and military support package remains stuck in Congress, blocked by Republican lawmakers.
Addressing finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven major industrialized nations on Wednesday, Marchenko said the government had been more active on the domestic debt market this year and looked for other ways to increase its budget revenues.
Senior executives of several of Ukraine’s biggest state-owned companies have told Reuters they had paid some of their obligatory budget payments in advance to help the government cover the budget deficit.
Ukraine’s budget gap is about $37 billion this year.
Ukraine channels most of its budget revenues into the defense effort and relies on foreign aid to pay pensions and state employees’ wages, and to cover social and humanitarian spending.
Finance ministry data shows Ukraine received about $1.2 billion from Japan and Norway in the first two months of this year.
“International donors’ help is not just a financial issue, but an opportunity to support millions of Ukrainians who need it and to save the lives of thousands of soldiers,” Marchenko said.
Ukraine needs $3 billion in financial aid per month in 2024, Kyiv says
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Ukraine needs $3 billion in financial aid per month in 2024, Kyiv says
- “We cannot allow a delay in attracting external financing,” Marchenko said
- The EU finally approved its 50 billion euro four-year facility for Ukraine this month
Five policemen kidnapped in southwestern Pakistan
Between 30 and 40 gunmen blocked a major highway that cuts across Balochistan province overnight on Friday, intercepting a prison van being transported by a police team, a police official said.
“The prisoners were released later but five policemen have been kidnapped,” a senior police official in the area, who was not authorized to speak to the media, told AFP on Sunday.
He said a rescue operation was underway.
The gunmen also set fire to government buildings and a bank in the area.
A senior government official, who asked not to be named, said that two gunmen were killed by security forces.
Pakistan has been battling a separatist insurgency in Balochistan for decades, where militants target state forces, foreign nationals, and non-locals in the mineral-rich southwestern province bordering Afghanistan and Iran.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the most active group in the region, claimed the assault in Kalat district.
The BLA has previously targeted energy projects receiving foreign financing — most notably from China.
In March, the group seized a train, taking hundreds of passengers hostage and killing off-duty security forces in a three-day seige.
Two dead, 31 injured in Croatia bus crash
- he health ministry, cited by state news agency Hina, said several badly hurt people had undergone operations in hospital
ZAGREB: Two people died and 31 people were injured when a Bosnian-registered coach and a car crashed into each other in Croatia on Sunday, police and medical staff said.
The accident occurred at 3:00 am (0100 GMT) on a busy freeway some 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of the capital, Zagreb.
The casualties were taken to nearby hospitals, police spokeswoman Maja Filipovic told AFP, adding that an investigation had been launched to determine the causes.
The health ministry, cited by state news agency Hina, said several badly hurt people had undergone operations in hospital.
Photos published by local media showed a double-decker bus lying on its side in the middle of the freeway with its windows broken.
15 killed in head-on road crash in South Africa
- South Africa has a sophisticated and busy road network
- Road accidents claimed more than 11,800 lives in 2023
JOHANNESBURG: A night-time collision between a packed minibus taxi and a pick-up truck has killed 15 people in rural South Africa, a transport official said on Sunday.
Five people were in hospital with serious injuries after the crash at around midnight on Saturday to Sunday near the Eastern Cape town of Maqoma, about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south of Johannesburg, provincial transport spokesman Unathi Binqose official told broadcaster Newzroom Afrika.
The drivers of both vehicles were among the dead and an inquest would be opened to determine what happened, Binqose said.
The victims included 13 passengers in the minibus, which was reportedly traveling from the town of Qonce to Cape Town, a journey of nearly 1,000 kilometers.
South Africa has a sophisticated and busy road network. It also has a high rate of road deaths, blamed mostly on speeding, reckless driving and unroadworthy vehicles.
Road accidents claimed more than 11,800 lives in 2023, with pedestrians making up around 45 percent of the victims, according to the latest data from the Road Traffic Management Corporation.
Putin says he hopes there will be no need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine
- Fear of nuclear escalation has been a factor in US officials’ thinking since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said in comments broadcast on Sunday said that the need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine had not arisen, and that he hoped it would not arise.
In a fragment of an upcoming interview with Russian state television published on Telegram, Putin said that Russia has the strength and the means to bring the conflict in Ukraine to a “logical conclusion.”
Responding to a question about Ukrainian strikes on Russia from a state television reporter, Putin said: “There has been no need to use those (nuclear) weapons ... and I hope they will not be required.”
He said: “We have enough strength and means to bring what was started in 2022 to a logical conclusion with the outcome Russia requires.”
Putin in February 2022 ordered tens of thousands of Russian troops into Ukraine, in what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation” against its neighbor.
Though Russian troops were repelled from Kyiv, Moscow’s forces currently control around 20 percent of Ukraine, including much of the south and east.
Putin has in recent weeks expressed willingness to negotiate a peace settlement, as US President Donald Trump has said he wants to end the conflict via diplomatic means.
Fear of nuclear escalation has been a factor in US officials’ thinking since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022. Former CIA Director William Burns has said there was a real risk in late 2022 that Russia could use nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
Chinese president to visit Russia on May 7-10
MOSCOW : Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Russia on May 7-10 and join Vladimir Putin at the 80th commemoration of the Allied victory against Nazi Germany, the Kremlin said on Sunday.
The Russian president’s office said Xi would also hold bilateral talks with Putin and the two were expected to sign “a series of bilateral documents.”
