Dear colleagues, dear Ukrainians!

Almost a year after the start of the full-scale invasion, the pro-Ukrainian coalition in the world is stronger than ever. Military, financial and political assistance from our partners has not only not disappeared, but continues to grow. Ukraine’s allies understand the importance of our victory in this war. It is important for Europe and the entire civilized world.

Yesterday, the President of the United States paid a historic visit to Kyiv. The first in 15 years and the most important in the history of independent Ukraine. At a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Joseph Biden expressed his absolute support for Ukraine. We are grateful for this clear signal to the whole world. A signal not only to our allies, but also to our enemy that it will never win in Ukraine.

During the meeting with President Biden and his team in a broad format, we discussed many issues of our cooperation, including financial support for Ukraine. We touched upon the issue of rapid recovery, for which the United States was allocating USD 1.5 billion, as well as the allocation of more than USD 1 billion to support the energy sector of Ukraine and Moldova. We also look forward to receiving the first tranche of the announced USD 10 billion budgetary assistance as soon as possible. This is an important element of our financial stability.

Thanks to the leadership of our American partners, the European Commission, and the G7 countries, we have managed to launch a new format of cooperation this year – the Multi-agency Donor Coordination Platform (the so-called “financial Ramstein”). The key goals of the meetings in this format are to help Ukraine finance its budget deficit, launch a reconstruction program this year, insure war risks, confiscate and use frozen russian assets, and address a wide range of other financial and economic issues.

Along with helping Ukraine’s economy, it is important to continue to put pressure on russia’s economy. That is why anti-russian sanctions were another point of yesterday’s talks. Now it is important for us that the nuclear industry of the russian federation and the state-owned company rosatom stop being a purse for continuation of this war. Therefore, we emphasize the importance of imposing sanctions against the russian nuclear industry. We are looking forward to new sanctions in this regard, both from the United States and the European Union.

The historic visit of the U.S. President to Kyiv took place simultaneously with another extremely important visit for Ukraine. Yesterday, an IMF delegation led by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva visited Kyiv.

We heard an extremely positive assessment of our work on the implementation of the IMF Monitoring Program. Our task in the coming weeks is to work even more intensely to ensure that Ukraine receives a multi-billion dollar program from the IMF this spring. We are currently saying that the size of this program will be more than USD 15 billion. This will be of utmost importance for covering the budget deficit.

At the same time, Ukraine needs another USD 17 billion this year for its rapid recovery. We are talking about rebuilding the energy sector, housing, humanitarian demining, critical infrastructure, and economic recovery.

In this context, I would like to thank the Government of Japan and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for the announced financial assistance to Ukraine in the amount of USD 5.5 billion. The funds will be used to restore infrastructure. We are also grateful to the Government of Norway and Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre for the announced multi-year program of support for Ukraine worth EUR 7.5 billion. These are funds for military, economic and humanitarian support of our country.

Such steps of solidarity demonstrate a new strategic approach to supporting Ukraine. We are talking about long-term assistance in strengthening Ukraine and helping our country implement the Recovery Plan.

Of course, all this external assistance and support will be converted into a stronger and more resilient Ukraine. At the same time, we continue to transform our country from within.

The three key elements of the Government’s anti-corruption strategy are digitalization, deregulation, and reducing the role of the state in the economy. The last point implies that the private sector should be the driver of recovery and growth, and the state should only be its reliable support. Therefore, the Government continues to reform corporate governance and privatization.

Since the beginning of the year alone, the state has raised UAH 747 million through open auctions as part of the so-called small-scale privatization, and entrepreneurs from all over the country have received opportunities to develop their business. The Government is approving the Procedure for holding electronic auctions during large-scale privatization. We are making the process more transparent, competitive and efficient.

And finally. Energy sector. There has been no power shortage in the energy system for the tenth day in a row and none is expected, provided no further attacks occur.

So I would like to thank the power engineers and especially the repair teams who are doing an incredible job.

Let’s keep working. For our victory. For the sake of our reconstruction. For a peaceful, strong and European Ukraine.

Glory to Ukraine!