KYIV – Ukraine has tapped new funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that could shore up its finances through 2019 while avoiding a liquidity crunch amid simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections taking place next year. 

A new lending program was brokered on October 22 with the Washington-based lender worth $3.9 billion. It replaces a previously existing agreement (that would’ve expired in March 2019) worth more than four times as much that stalled in April 2017 because Kyiv wasn’t meeting reform benchmarks.