KIEV, March 03. /ITAR-TASS/. The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Mission will arrive in Ukraine on March 4 to discuss the economic situation in the country.

At the request of the Ukrainian authorities, the IMF Mission headed by Nikolay Georgiev of Bulgaria will arrive in Ukraine on March 4 to assess the economic situation and discuss the policy of reforms that can provide the basis for programs supported by the IMF, the Fund said on Monday, March 3.

IMF European Department Director Reza Moghadam will work in Ukraine for several days. The Mission is expected to conclude its work on March 14.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk of the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party’s faction in the national parliament which has appointed him to be prime minister said Ukraine would meet all of the IMF requirements.

Yatsenyuk said he had talked with IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde but “does not want to talk about the results of the conversation.”

“The first assignment I have given to the minister of finance is to cut budget expenditures,” Yatsenyuk said, adding that the current budget “is based on unrealistic indicators.”

He said budget expenditures could be cut by 65 billion ($6.7 billion) to 80 billion hryvnia ($8.2 billion).

Yatsenyuk believes that Ukraine “will have to restore its military production.”

When asked whether joint Ukrainian-American naval exercises were being planned, he said, “I would not like to create the impression that destroyers will arrive and all problems will be solved… We will have to solve the problems ourselves. We will have to build destroyers and restore military production.”

The previous government “took purposeful efforts in the previous four years to undermine the country’s defense capability.”

Speaking about Crimea, Yatsenyuk expressed hope that Russian troops would stay on the island. “There will be no short-term solution to the problem of Crimea,” he said.

Yatsenyuk said his government was preparing a number of decisions regarding this issue, including those on a new government for the autonomy and on its rights. He stressed that Ukraine “is prepared for a real and transparent dialogue with the Russian Federation.