The UK will provide $3bn as part of a G7 loan to Ukraine, leaving only the US and Japan to agree their contributions to the $50bn lending package, which will be repaid with profits generated by future profits from frozen Russian state assets.
Rachel Reeves, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, said she hoped the “other parts of the jigsaw would fall into place” when G7 finance minister gather at the end of this week on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington.
G7 countries have been racing to agree on the structure of the loan and the amounts they will contribute so that Ukraine, which has faced repeated attacks on its energy infrastructure, can count on the funding before the end of the year.