Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal to attend economic meetings in DC

Joined by several top Ukrainian finance officials, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal is set to visit Washington, D.C. next week as the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank begin.

Sources with inside knowledge of the plans reported on Shmyahl’s upcoming visit on Friday.

Shmyahl along with Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko and central bank governor Kyrylo Shevchenko are set to meet bilaterally with finance officials from the Group of Seven countries and others.

The group is preparing to take part in a round table discussion on Ukraine, which will be hosted by the World Bank on Thursday, according to the sources. Thursday’s meeting will be the first chance for the top Ukrainian officials to sit down in person with several financial officials from developed economies since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.

Additional discussion of topics surrounding Russia’s war in Ukraine are expected to take over throughout next week’s meetings of senior economic officials from World Bank and IMF member countries, in addition to the G7 and G20, with the IMF looking to downgrade its forecast for the overall global growth specifically because of the war.

According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, he decided to send his troops into the neighboring country on what he has described as “a special military operation” to demilitarize and “denazify” Ukraine.

Kyiv along with Western allies have said those reasons are not nearly strong enough to justify an unprovoked war of aggression that has caused around one quarter of Ukraine’s 44 million people from their homes. Furthermore, thousands have been killed as a result of the attack.

Both the IMF and World Bank have set up separate accounts to process and relay donations, but Thursday’s meeting looks to be more of a round table discussion than a donors conference.

This will allow officials to have the chance to talk about both the physical devastation and the economic consequences of the war, and additionally the continued functioning of Ukraine’s banking and financial sector.