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The IMF will start work this month on a program to provide budget support to Ukraine next year after authorities in Kyiv asked for up to $20 billion, senior officials said on Wednesday.

Speaking via video at a ministerial meeting hosted by the IMF and the World Bank in Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said an IMF program of up to $20 billion will be $38 billion next year.

IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva said the fund will work to convene an economic forum for Ukraine, which will meet regularly to consider how to close the country’s financing gap.

“It is the way . . . to a full-fledged program that you’ve been asking for,” she said. “And we are moving with you towards a strong Ukraine.”

US Treasury Secretary Jane Yellen thanked the IMF for “laying the groundwork for a full-fledged program by next year.” She hailed the efforts of all donors in Ukraine, but said the “volume, predictability and grant component” of their funding needed to be improved.

The US has urged the EU to accelerate and increase its financial support to Ukraine. In August, the EU paid out the first billion euros of the 9 billion euros pledged in May, but has yet to deliver the rest.

The US has given Kyiv $8.5 billion in grants and recently approved another $4.5 billion, which Yellen says will be disbursed in the coming weeks.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal also addressed the meeting via video and called for further sanctions against Russia after its attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine this week and a freeze on Russian assets abroad.

“Restitution to the aggressor simply means that there is no penalty for destruction, murder and terror in the modern world,” he said. “Russia is paying too low a price for its crimes.”

This article has been amended to reflect the fact that Kristalina Georgieva did not say that the IMF would provide $20 billion to Ukraine