Ukrainian leader calls for further financial aid from IMF, the West

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Thursday called for further help from the International Monetary Fund and the West to help stabilize the national currency, the hyrvnia.       

The currency has lost 40 per cent of its value against the dollar since the beginning of the year and the onset of a costly conflict with pro-Russian separatists in the east.           

Speaking at a news conference in Kiev, Poroshenko said he would do all he could to protect the hryvnia against attacks and end "speculation" operations against it.          

But he said the present $17-billion loan program with the IMF would have to be reviewed because of the war in the east.          

Ukraine also required one billion euros of extra macro-financial aid from the European Union and a further one billion dollars in financial guarantees from the United States, he said.

On another note, Poroshenko said Ukraine and the rest of the world will not recognize local elections planned by pro-Russian separatists next month, adding that he hoped Russia would follow the same course.       

Ukraine has proposed that local elections be held, under Kiev's direction, in December in areas of eastern Ukraine where separatists have set up 'people's republics', but the rebels say they want to hold their own elections in early November without intervention from Kiev.         

Referring to the rebels' proposed poll, Poroshenko told a news conference: "They will not be recognized either by Ukraine or by the whole world and I hope not by Russia either."

Earlier, Ukraine's President Poroshenko said he would present a broad plan of social and economic reforms later on Thursday which would allow the former Soviet republic to apply for membership of the European Union in six years.

Ukraine's parliament ratified a landmark association agreement with the EU on Sept. 16, though implementation of the trade part of the agreement has been delayed until January 2016 to appease Russia, which says the pact will hurt its markets.

Poroshenko, speaking to the country's judiciary, also said that for the first time in many months no deaths or wounded had been reported in the past 24 hours in the conflict with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, indicating that a ceasefire "has finally begun working".