Ukraine's National Bank: Only about one-third of Ukraine's $65 bln financing needs for 2026–2027 are secured

Ukraine's international financing outlook for 2025 appears relatively comfortable, but for 2026–2027 a major gap remains, with only about one-third of the needed $65 billion backed by confirmed sources so far, according to First Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Serhiy Nikolaychuk.

"Our estimates show that roughly two-thirds of the 2026–2027 financing requirement currently lack confirmed sources. There is a gap for next year and an even larger gap for 2027," he told Interfax-Ukraine in an interview.

Nikolaychuk explained that the NBU projects slightly higher external financing needs than the government: $35 billion in 2026 and $30 billion in 2027. These figures do not include the reserve expected to be built this year from ERA mechanism inflows – funds sourced from frozen Russian assets.

Earlier, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko estimated Ukraine's financing gap for 2026–2027 at $37 billion. He noted that the 2026 requirement is $45 billion, but part of this will be covered by the reserve created from international funding received this year.

Under Ukraine's Extended Fund Facility (EFF) with the International Monetary Fund, following its seventh review in March 2025, the country agreed to split G7 financing via the ERA mechanism into three parts: one portion for the current year's budget, another for advance financing of next year's deficit, and a third as contingency funding for a downside scenario.

In the baseline scenario, the second portion was set at $8.4 billion: $8.1 billion to be used in 2026 and $0.3 billion in Q1 2027. The third portion – a financial buffer – was to be funded with $9.1 billion of ERA inflows in 2025 and another $1 billion in 2026.