Ukraine’s Finance Ministry said on Wednesday that a two-year agreement with creditors to freeze payments on $20 billion in foreign debt is evidence of investors’ willingness to support Kyiv, Reuters reports.

“Thanks to the solidarity with Ukraine of the community of private investors together with the state sector, we will be able to provide for the needs of the country’s state budget in wartime,” said Minister of Finance Serhiy Marchenko.

Ukraine’s foreign creditors approved Kyiv’s request

for a two-year moratorium on nearly $20 billion in bond payments, a move that would allow the country to avoid default.

With no prospect of peace or a ceasefire after nearly 6 months of fighting since the February 24 invasion, financial institutions holding Ukrainian government bonds have agreed to defer interest and principal payments on 13 sovereign bonds maturing between 2002 and 2033.

Kyiv’s government made a formal request for it on July 20, saying it would help it save about $5 billion over the next 24 months as it faces a sharp cut in budget revenues and huge spending because of the war.

Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said his country’s economy was in a “coma,” downplaying the importance of the first Ukrainian grain ship to leave the country’s ports since the war began on February 24. The ship arrived in Turkey on August 2.

A Lebanese buyer of the grain arrived at its final destination a week later but abandoned the shipment on Tuesday due to delivery delays, causing a new headache for officials in Kyiv, who already expect Ukraine’s wheat harvest to be cut in half this year by the war.

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