Ukraine's international reserves at the end of February stood at $15.5 billion against $15.445 billion at the beginning of the month, Head of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Valeriya Gontareva has said.

"The NBU's net forex purchase in the interbank market in February amounted to $81 million, while in general since the year start $3 million," she said at a press conference in Kyiv.

"We plan to increase our reserves, but if the situation on the foreign exchange market allows us to do it," Gontareva said.

She explained currently there is the risk of losing $2 billion in foreign exchange earnings due to the continuing traffic blockade of Donbas, which could disrupt these plans.

At the same time, the NBU head stressed the baseline scenario of continuation of cooperation with the IMF allows to neutralize these risks in terms of their significant impact on the price and exchange rate situation.