Kyiv, Sept. 23 -- Ukraine has quietly accepted a far steeper bill for keeping the state running through war, embracing an International Monetary Fund assessment that puts the country's external financing needs at roughly $65 billion in foreign financing through 2027 rather than the far lower figure officials once floated. The recalibration, hammered out in talks with the Washington lender and circulated to Brussels, sets the stage for a more ambitious rescue architecture and forces Europe and the wider Group of Seven to decide whether they will underwrite Ukraine's public sector at wartime scale for years to come.

The headline number is not the whole story. Kyiv is exploring a new multiyear program with the IMF that would run alongside t...