Changes to the State Budget: Why There Is No Promised Salary Increase for Military Personnel

The Verkhovna Rada adopted amendments to the State Budget for 2026, increasing defense spending by over one and a half trillion hryvnias. However, the increase in payments to military personnel declared by the country’s leader did not happen in practice.

This was reported on the air of “Pryamoy” by the executive director of the Economic Discussion Club, Oleg Pendzin, explaining that there is currently a lack of real financial resources for this. Prime Minister Svyrydenko noted that the government is only calculating the mechanisms for balancing funds for future changes.

“Listen, I’ll be honest, you just made an announcement, but the increase in military salaries promised by the President of Ukraine has not happened. As of now,” the studio guest noted.

According to his estimates, the state treasury lacks at least 15-18 billion hryvnias to ensure basic payments at the level of previous periods. Meanwhile, the average salary in the country has increased significantly since the establishment of basic salaries for defense personnel, but indexation of payments to defense personnel has not been carried out since 2022.

The allocated one and a half trillion is actually not “real money”, but assistance from Western partners in the form of military equipment and drones, explains Oleg Pendzin.

On the eve of the Eurosolidarity MPs, they stated that the authorities spent the funds from the Reserve Fund for 2026 during the first quarter, and now decided to get into the pocket of the defense budget , withdrawing UAH 40 billion from it. At the same time, the MPs emphasize, the funds from the Reserve Fund were spent not on reconstruction needs, but on cashback and other populist initiatives.

In addition, the People’s Deputy of Ukraine from the European Solidarity faction, Nina Yuzhanina, reported that there was no real increase in the internal financing of the Ministry of Defense . Instead, the authorities redistributed European loan funds and cut their own defense capabilities by a huge amount.

As a reminder, the government decided to withdraw 40 billion hryvnias from the Defense Ministry’s budget , which were planned to be spent on the purchase of weapons from its own revenues. However, these plans are now under threat, despite the Cabinet’s promises to replace financing with loans.

In addition, experts express concern over the actions of the Cabinet of Ministers, which is engaged in “ questionable redistribution of funds ” between budget items. In particular, it is about the withdrawal of 40 billion hryvnias from the defense sector to the reserve fund, which may stop the increase in military salaries.

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