Ukraine’s finance minister said a “win-win” deal for restructuring $18 billion of debt had been agreed with a group of its largest creditors. Poroshenko is looking to meet all the conditions of the emergency assistance from the International Monetary Fund.  Debt restructuring should save the country $15.3 billion through 2018, while attempting to end the worst recession of anywhere across Africa, Europe and the Middle East. The government will not have to make interest or principal payments until 2019.

The deal also includes a so-called GDP growth warrant that will kick in from 2021 through 2040.

Ukraine’s US-born finance minister Natalie Jaresko said she nailed the debt deal that pulled the ex-Soviet country back from the brink.

Ukraine agreed to raise its coupon rates to 7.75 per cent from 7.2 per cent while the lenders accepted slightly longer repayment terms.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande – co-sponsors of an increasingly tattered six-month-old truce – reaffirmed their support for the deal.

Ukraine started negotiations requesting a 40% haircut on the creditors’ holdings.

Franklin Templeton and three other global financial titans led to a 20-percent write-down or “haircut” to the face value of the bonds they hold, a deal that saves Ukraine 11.5 billion. The EU is brokering negotiations between Moscow and Kiev to secure gas supplies for the upcoming winter, but there has been little progress so far.

Still unresolved is the fate of the $3 billion Russian loan, given to prop up the regime of former president Viktor Yanukovych before he was ousted past year.

EU President Juncker  gave assurances on highly anticipated plans to lift visa requirements for citizens of Ukraine visiting the EU, and said he expects the commission to give a green light by the end of the year.

Moscow insists that the debt be treated as a sovereign obligation, while Kiev is treating it as a commercial debt.