Running on Generators and European Taxes: Ukraine’s Fuel Prices Hit New Heights

Source: Author’s Facebook page

The government proudly claims that we are “harmonizing” our legislation with European standards and raising fuel excise taxes to match EU levels. But let’s call a spade a spade: attempting to align fiscal policy with Europe without improving living standards, eliminating corruption, and building functioning institutions is a cruel and deeply anti-people absurdity. This is European integration through impoverishment.

€65 pensions against European excise taxes

Let’s look at the numbers without the government’s rose-colored glasses. Our economy is ruined. The country literally lives on generators due to constant power outages. People’s incomes have fallen dramatically. What can the European excise tax be (today it is over 300 euros per 1000 liters)? when:
– The average pension in Ukraine is a shameful 65 euros per month.
– The average salary barely reaches 350 euros.
Our GDP is vastly different from that of European countries, yet excise taxes make a basic commodity—fuel—virtually inaccessible. In Europe, high excise taxes serve a purpose: they make gasoline artificially expensive to encourage wealthier citizens to switch to environmentally friendly transportation.

In the USA, by the way, where they really value business and understand the vital importance of cheap logistics, the federal excise tax is meager—about 4.5 eurocents per liter! And what is our state doing? It is simply pumping the last penny out of people’s pockets, creating artificial inflation. After all, these 73 hryvnias per liter automatically go into the cost of every loaf of bread, every kilogram of potatoes, and every service.

Survival Tax: How We Pay for Blackouts

In 2024, the state collected almost UAH 78.7 billion in fuel excise. In 2025, this amount will exceed UAH 100–110 billion. If we break down today’s UAH 73 per liter, we will see:

The excise tax amounts to approximately 14 UAH.
On top of that, another 20% VAT is added (that’s another 3 UAH).
In total, we give more than 17 hryvnias per liter to the state for nothing.

When a country runs on generators, it’s not just about coffee shops. It’s about medical logistics, hospital supplies, and the work of intensive care units and operating rooms during blackouts—all of this is supported by autonomous power. And from every liter that a hospital generator or volunteer bus burns, the state cynically extorts a “European” tax.

If the government had completely abolished the excise tax during martial law, the retail price wouldn’t have reached 73 UAH. But about 55 UAH per liter! And this is not a utopia. Let’s remember March 2022, when it was necessary to save the country from collapse: the government had already zeroed the excise tax and reduced VAT to 7%. This saved logistics and allowed the business to survive. Why are taxes only increasing now?

Tales about roads

For years, government officials have been telling us a fairy tale: “Expensive fuel = quality roads. You pay excise tax for your comfort.” Well, this winter, the roads all over Ukraine melted away with the snow. Only directions remained. I recently drove from the Frankivsk region to Kyiv—I did not recognize the road; it is completely broken. In Kyiv itself, in places, there is no asphalt at all. The Odesa road—one of the key logistical arteries of the country—is destroyed! And all this happened in one season.

Now they are making excuses for us: they say the Road Fund has been zeroed out, and all these billions from the excise tax go to the general budget for the army. It sounds noble. But the reality is different. We have received double taxation: you pay the European excise tax in the price of gasoline, then you leave the chassis of your car in crater-sized holes and pay thousands of hryvnias at the service station (from which the state again takes taxes), and all this with an average salary 10 times lower than the average European one! This is economic genocide on the part of Ukrainian officials.

And while ordinary Ukrainians are throwing their last hryvnias at drones and turnstiles, they see a different reality in the news—another corruption scandal, millions of “theft” in tenders, and brand new villas for deputies and officials somewhere in Spain or Monaco. And a logical question arises: whose needs are actually being financed by my 73 hryvnia gasoline/diesel?

Conclusion

When a country survives on generators, the state is obligated to completely abolish excise taxes on fuel for the duration of martial law. This is not a whim—it is a basic matter of economic and physical survival.

Removing the excise tax noose would instantly revive the economy. Without the excise tax, the cost of logistics would immediately drop, the galloping rise in prices for basic products would stop, the frantic pressure on business during blackouts would decrease, and Ukrainians would finally be able to keep their money with their own families, rather than giving it into a bottomless budget hole.

Instead, what we have now is far from saving the state. Paying European taxes on African salaries and smashing cars every day on destroyed routes is an open plundering of our own people. It is a cynical pursuit of those who still dare to live here, create jobs, and carry this country on their shoulders.

Therefore, my proposal is clear and without alternative: the state is obliged to completely abolish the excise tax on fuel for the entire period of martial law, plus another 6 months after its end. This is the essential oxygen buffer our businesses need to survive and adjust.

And when it comes to refunding these taxes, the excise rate should be strictly and fairly proportional to the actual average income in Ukraine. Because when the incomes of a Ukrainian and a European differ by 10 times, blindly applying their figures to our reality simply kills the very essence of any “European standards,” turning them into an instrument of financial bullying.

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