As of September 30, 2024, the state and state-guaranteed debt of Ukraine has grown to 6.404 trillion UAH, which is equivalent to 155.6 billion US dollars. Such data were provided by the Ministry of Finance, and they were announced by the head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, Danylo Hetmantsev.

In September, the state debt in hryvnia increased by 0.5%, or by 32.3 billion hryvnias, and in the currency equivalent it increased by 0.6%, which amounted to 0.9 billion dollars. Hetmantsev noted that this month's growth was mostly due to an increase in domestic borrowings - UAH 40.5 billion, while external debt, on the contrary, decreased by UAH 8.9 billion.

The reason for such changes in the structure of the state debt was the active attraction of funds by the Ministry of Finance through domestic state loan bonds (OVDP). These auctions were aimed at financing the budget deficit, which has grown significantly due to increased defense and security spending. September became a record for the amount of domestic funds raised: UAH 72.4 billion was raised at auctions, which is 2.5 times more than in August. Of these, UAH 26.5 billion was directed to repayment of the debt under the OVDP.

At the end of September, the structure of the state debt has changed: currency debt is 74.8%, and hryvnia debt is 25.2% (before the war, the indicators were 65.1% and 34.9%, respectively). The share of external debt increased to 72%, and the share of internal debt decreased to 28%, which is a significant deviation from the pre-war indicators (61% external and 39% internal). As part of external loans, 58.4% are official borrowings, in particular from the EU (28.4%), while OVDP bonds occupy 26.9%, Eurobonds - 10.3%, the remaining 4.4% - other obligations .

For October, Hetmantsev predicts the continuation of the growth of the domestic debt due to increased activity of banks at auctions for placement of government bonds. This is due to the decision of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) dated October 11 to increase reserve requirements for banks by 5 percentage points. At the same time, the NBU allowed banks to invest 60% of mandatory reserves in OVDP instead of 50%, which will stimulate investments in domestic government debt.

To encourage banks to buy OVDP bonds, the NBU also lowered the interest rate on three-month certificates of deposit. Earlier, a number of decisions were made, such as the introduction of switch operations and expansion of the functions of the NBU depository, which will contribute to the development of the primary and secondary markets of government bonds.

In addition, a new increase in Ukraine's foreign debt is expected in October, as the next tranche from the International Monetary Fund under the EFF program in the amount of $1.1 billion is planned.