The World Bank on Monday approved $723 million (£551 million) in loans and grants for Ukraine, as the country battles a Russian invasion.
The bank said it continued to work on another $3 billion support program in the coming months for the country if the war continued to escalate. The bank also pledged additional aid to neighbouring countries hosting more than 1.7 million refugees, mostly women, children and the elderly. The bank said the funds would help the Ukrainian government provide essential services, including salaries for hospital employees, pensions for the elderly and social programs for the vulnerable.
The bank says financial assistance for Ukraine includes a pledge of $100 million from the UK.
"The World Bank Group is taking swift action to support Ukraine and its people in the face of the violence and extreme disruption caused by the Russian invasion," the bank's president, David Malpass, said in a statement.
The aid includes a $350 million loan, plus $139 million with guarantees from the Netherlands and Sweden. It also consists of $134 million in grants from Britain, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania and Iceland, as well as $100 million in funding from Japan.
It calls on its members for other grants to feed this fund.
In 13 days of war, hundreds of civilians have been killed and thousands more wounded in Ukraine. More than 1.7 million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, more than half of whom have been welcomed in Poland, according to the latest UN counts.
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