The World Bank is ready to provide USD 3 B of financial assistance to Ukraine.

On its website, the World Bank Group announced it had received a request from the country's interim government and has expressed willingness to "continue supporting the Ukrainian people".

"We are moving forward with our pipeline of projects and aim to support the government to undertake the reforms badly needed to put the economy on a path to sustainability," President of the Group, Jim Young Kim, has declared in a statement.

After the loan packages announced by the EU and the US, the financial institution has also expressed interest in helping the country, which announced it was struggling to deal with its fiscal liabilities after ousting president Viktor Yanukovych on February 22 and being forced to deal with a crisi on its Crimean peninsula that is on the brink of seceding.

The institution is also ready to "assist the government with formulating and implementing a comprehensive program of structural reforms to address these challenges."

The World Street Journal has learned that roughly USD 1 B of the sum would be put aside for budget assistance, which will be conditioned on taking steps to strengthen the economy, and USD 2 B will are to be spent on infrastructure projects and private-sector programs requested by the previous government.

The new aid, however, will also have strings attached to Kiev's fulfillment of requirements that have yet to be set by the International Monetary Fund. Conditionality has been announced as an obligatory part of the USD 1 B and EUR 11 B (i.e. USD 15 B) loans that the US and the EU are ready to provide after upcoming talks between Ukrainian government representatives and IMF officials.

An investment and guarantee program, worth USD 3.7 B and implemented by the World Bank, is currently under way in Ukraine.

Earlier, the Finance Ministry in Kiev declared that it needed some USD 35 B to meet all of its obligation.

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