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Ukraine has demanded the EU provide a stable and predictable flow of financial support to keep its government functioning, warning that Kyiv was being “squeezed by uncertainty” over cash flows, the Financial Times reports.

The plea comes as the European Commission struggles to agree a strategy to provide more clarity over its economic assistance to Ukraine in the coming year despite urgent calls from Kyiv and Washington to clarify its approach.

“We of course want a more structured and more predictable process [from the EU],” said Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European integration. “We are waiting for the commission.”

“It depends on whether teachers will get their salary, whether medical or social staff and pensioners will get paid, whether we can perform our government functions,” she said between meetings in Brussels used to press EU officials on their slow pace of support. “We hope that lessons will be learned and we will not be squeezed by uncertainty.”

Kyiv is counting on $38bn in budgetary assistance from its international partners in 2023, or about $3.5bn a month.

Stefanishyna praised a decision by the US to provide monthly budget support to Kyiv, and called on the EU to take a similar step. But, so far, there is little clarity on how a more predictable funding plan will work, say the bloc’s diplomats and officials.

EU assistance for Ukraine since Russia "launched its full-scale invasion" in February has been subject to repeated delays as member states haggle over the terms of the loans. The EU extended an emergency MFA loan of €1.2bn in the spring, before announcing plans to advance another €9bn.

But the bloc has transferred only €1bn of the new funding round. It has agreed to pay €5bn in three tranches between now and the end of the year, with no timetable set for the remaining €3bn. Washington has already provided $8.5bn in economic assistance to Kyiv.