To survive, Ukraine will need 3-5 billion dollars a month

Sergey Vasilyev, entrepreneur, publicist

And what about Ukraine now in terms of finances?

We are now in a military confrontation with this country and it will be useful to understand what they have now with finances, how do they solve their current issues?

This can be clearly understood from the latest fresh report of the National Bank of Ukraine, which covers the beginning of the year, including the "military" March and April.

First, about the balance of payments.

Exports and imports collapsed by 50-60%, but imports collapsed even more (in this the situation in Ukraine is similar to Russia), in addition, the National Bank introduced severe restrictions on foreign exchange transfers, on the movement of capital, and a significant surplus was formed on the trading account.

This is a rare occurrence for Ukraine. All last year, and all the years before that, Ukraine had a deficit on its trading account. But specifically in the military "March-April" a surplus of about $ 1.5 billion was formed.

But rather, this can be attributed to a one-time moment when, after good exports in January-February, imports completely zeroed out and a surplus accumulated on the trading account.

Now the budget.

There is a huge (90% compared to last year) drop in the collection of all taxes in March and April, the budget showed a deficit of 90 billion hryvnia, i.e. $3 billion per month.

Where did Ukraine get the money in March-April to cover this deficit?

Half of this amount was allocated to them by the IMF and other Western structures in the form of a loan, and the second half was financed by the National Bank of Ukraine, directly buying the debt of the Government.

The National Bank clearly writes in its report that in the conditions of “wartime” it has started “monetary” financing of the needs of the budget, i.e. he simply printed money, in particular, under that temporarily formed surplus on the trading account.

A very interesting page in the report of the National Bank, on which he formulated the main methods and tools with which he works now, in this "war" time:

1. The NBU fixed the hryvnia exchange rate against the dollar, i.е. now all official foreign exchange transactions in Ukraine are carried out at one fixed rate of 29.25 hryvnia/$.
2. The NBU conducts blank financing of the largest banks, providing them with liquidity in manual mode, i.e. through the printing press.
3. The NBU conducts direct "monetary" financing of the needs of the budget, through the purchase of "military" government bonds, in particular, using foreign exchange funds from the gold reserves.
4. Due to the lack of influence of the key rate on inflation and on economic processes in general, the NBU stopped reviewing and forecasting the key rate.

These are the finances in Ukraine now.

Will it be long enough?

Already now, the monthly budget deficit is about $ 3 billion, the Minister of Finance and Zelensky already call the figure of 5 billion monthly needs. All kinds of American lend-leases describe the supply of weapons, but not the financing of the current needs of the Ukrainian budget. So far, at the end of April, Ukraine did not have any grant and stable external sources. 1.5 billion one-time loan from the IMF will not save Ukraine.

The only thing they have is the printing press of the National Bank. But it's not for long. A trading account surplus in March-April is a one-time occurrence.

I think that in May-June it will no longer be, and then the official hryvnia exchange rate will already be very different from the real one on the black market.

And here it will be critical for Ukraine. Or she will find a sponsor/sponsors who, on a monthly basis in a state of war, will allocate $ 3-5 billion to her life.

Or everything will fly into hell...

From the editors of Novye Izvestia.

The fact that Ukraine needs $ 15 billion to cover the needs of the budget for 3 months was also said by the Prime Minister of this country Denys Shmygal on May 19 at the summit of the G7 countries: “Today we call on the G7 countries to provide Ukraine with urgent funding for the operational needs of the budget. We need at least $15 billion over the next three months to meet these needs. It's as important to us as weapons".

Most likely, this call will be heeded, but for now it is known that only for economic needs (in addition to military ones) and to solve the problem of food security, the United States will allocate $14 billion to Ukraine in the coming days, plus another $11 billion can be transferred to Joe Biden at his own discretion.