Ukraine’s public debt reached a record $136.35bn at the end of October

Ukraine’s Finance Ministry has said that the country’s public and state-guaranteed debt has reached a new historical record of $136.35bn.

“As of 31 October 2023, Ukraine’s state and state-guaranteed debt amounted to 4958.37 billion hryvnias, or $136.35 billion,” TASS quoted the ministry’s statement as saying.

The ministry said that state and state-guaranteed foreign debt made up 68.04% of the total debt, or $92.77bn; state and state-guaranteed domestic debt – 31.96%, or $43.57bn.

Earlier, Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said that Kiev would not be able to drastically reduce its dependence on aid from other countries even after the conflict is over.

He also noted that at the moment the Ukrainian budget is able to cover only military expenditures, while all other items are financed by the money of Kiev’s partners.

In his turn, the first deputy speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Oleksandr Korniyenko, said that without the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), everything in Ukraine will fall like dominoes.