JPMorgan has lent about $350m to Ukraine’s government, two weeks before a presidential election in the cash-strapped Eastern European country.

The bank lent the money by purchasing bonds directly from Ukraine, a departure from the standard Wall Street practice of arranging bond sales from governments to outside investors, people familiar with the deal said. The deal could deliver millions of dollars in gains for JPMorgan, which bought the bonds at a discount and has already begun unloading them to bond funds at full market price, they said.