Ukrainian authorities have made a new push this week to get international financial and political support, as well as weapons.
While Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was in Berlin discussing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel equipment for Ukrainian military hospitals and agreement on 500 million euros loan that is expected to be signed in early April, Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko was fund-raising in the United States. At her meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew on March 16, Jaresko said that the $17.5 billion loan program approved by International Monetary Fund last week is not enough for Ukraine.
“The package that we have is going to stabilize the financial banking system, but it’s not enough to seriously restart growth and promote growth,” Jaresko told the Wall Street Journal.
She also had meetings with State Department and White House officials, and said that if Ukraine’s international partners don’t want to provide “us with defensive military support, then provide us with financial support.”
Ex-Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who is now Poroshenko’s adviser on reforms, is sure U.S. will supply Ukraine with weapons.
“What gives me hope is the fact that the opinion of U.S. society and the political elite is firm on this idea. Almost everyone in Congress as well as in the Senate supports it, and the Pentagon and intelligence community want it,” he told Bloomberg on March 16.
So far, US authorities have brushed aside Kyiv requests for lethal weapon, but last week the Administration of the U.S. President Barack Obama stated that it would provide $75 million in non-lethal aid to Ukraine’s military.
Earlier this month German ambassador to the U.S., Peter Wittig, said in an Associated Press interview that Obama agreed not to send lethal weapon to Ukraine during a White House meeting in February with Merkel.
Meanwhile, during her latest meeting with Poroshenko, Merkel promised to strengthen sanctions against Russia if “the rough violations take place.”
According to a Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko, during the past 24 hours three Ukrainian servicemen have been killed in Ukraine’s east despite a ceasefire agreement with Russian-backed separatists.
Germany has also pledged 500 million euros loan to Ukraine. First pledged by Merkel in August 2014, the cash will be broken down into smaller lumps and used for various purposes. Some 300 million euros will be set off for jointly defined projects, such as recovery in the east of the country, according to Deputy Prime Minister Hennadiy Zubko . He said it would be used to support small and medium businesses, energy projects and renew infrastructure.
The rest will be used to strengthen macro-financial stability of the country.
The loan comes with a low interest rate and is guaranteed by the government, but the agreement on it is unlikely to be signed by April 1 at the earliest.
Meanwhile, the German government is set to send some medical equipment to a Ukrainian military hospital in Zaporizhzhya. Germany also pledged medical devices to other Ukrainian hospitals, and selected 17 severely wounded soldiers for treatment.
Other countries are chipping in as well. Romania’s President Klaus Werner Iohannis, whom Poroshenko met on March 17 in Kyiv, promised to back Ukraine at the Riga summit of the Eastern Partnership in this May in its intentions to get visa free regime with EU.
