KIEV (AFP) - Ukraine's interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on Sunday he would travel to the United States this week for crisis talks with senior officials.

"I am going to the United States for meetings at the highest level aimed at settling the situation in Ukraine," Interfax quoted Mr Yatsenyuk as telling a government meeting.

Mr Yatsenyuk said the next Cabinet meeting on Wednesday would be conducted by his deputy, but did not specify when he would be travelling to Washington.

The visit to Washington will be the interim premier's first since he came to head the Cabinet following the Feb 22 ouster of pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych.

Mr Yatsenyuk paid a visit to Brussels last week, during which he won diplomatic backing from European Union leaders in his efforts to preserve his country's territorial integrity in the face of Russia's de facto seizure of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula.

Both the European Union and the United States have also promised to provide a financial assistance package for Kiev that could help the interim team avert a looming debt default.