KYIV. Dec 17 (Interfax) - Ukraine is facing serious challenges but the authorities know what the solution is, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said.

"We are facing these challenges but we know how to deal with them. Yet we will have to act together with our European partners, G7 countries, so that we live through the very difficult year 2015 and attain a certain growth and stabilization in 2016," Yatsenyuk said at a Brussels conference of the European Policy Center (EPC) dedicated to the priorities of the new Ukrainian government.

He said Ukraine had to deal with two challenges, the first of which was security and other was "economic related to security issues."

The premier reminded the audience that the Ukrainian government had announced its reform plan and said that the Ukrainian National Guard was built from scratch. "Our army expenditures are colossal, about 95 million hryvni a day. That is an extremely big burden for the national budget to carry," Yatsenyuk said.

In his words, the Ukrainian government values international support. The total volume of assistance provided to Ukraine by the IMF, the World Bank and G7 countries stands at approximately $9 billion. "We have drawn about $9 billion and paid $14 billion to our creditors this year," the Ukrainian premier said.

At the same time, the Ukrainian government is expecting a 7% GDP decline. "Ukraine has lost up to 20% of its economy