Holes in the defense budget: where did the military money go?

The authorities were aware of the lack of funds in the defense budget, in particular for military salaries, but failed to find additional resources in a timely manner. Instead, they actively “mastered” corruption schemes and spent money not on the army’s primary needs, but on various “cashbacks” and “telethons.”

This was stated on the air of “Pryamoy” by Oleg Synyutka, a member of parliament from the “European Solidarity” faction.

“We talked about all this at the end of last year, when the government submitted a draft budget to parliament for consideration. Even then, we warned the government that these funds would not be enough to defend the country. Even then, we said that we would face the fact that the budget would require revision and additional resources. But why were the authorities deaf then? Not only because someone cannot calculate, or someone believes that resources are not needed for defense,” Sintyuka recalls.

According to him, the current government, instead of providing funds for the needs of the army, has primarily financed various corruption schemes.

“I think that the government’s goal when approving the 2025 budget was completely different. They provided funds, they wanted to provide it and finance it primarily for various corruption schemes, including cashbacks, telethons, asphalting, planting, and so on, and so on. and in the end we have a situation where money from the budget was spent not on priority expenses, but on the country’s defense and the army is not enough, so a new project appears that encourages additional spending by more than 300 billion.”

“I have a question. When the government proposed, and the “servants of the people” in parliament voted for 40 billion, where there was not a single penny for defense needs, didn’t they know then that money would be needed for defense? Didn’t they understand then that money was needed to increase payments for the Ukrainian military? Didn’t they understand then that there were not enough drones in the army? Everything is fine, unfortunately, they knew. And at the same time, they spent money that was needed for the army on various corruption schemes,” Oleg Synyutka, a member of parliament from European Solidarity, is indignant.

As a reminder, the Cabinet of Ministers has approved amendments to the 2025 State Budget, which provide for an increase in expenditures and the defense sector. It is proposed to increase general budget expenditures by 317 billion hryvnias , most of which will be transferred to finance the Ministry of Defense. In particular, the money will be directed to salaries of military personnel; purchase and repair of weapons and equipment; development of the defense industry and introduction of new technologies.

It was previously reported that the State Budget expenditures in the security and defense sector will be increased by about 300 billion hryvnias this year. The Ministry of Finance is currently preparing a draft law, and it must be voted on as a whole by November 1 so that there are no delays in payments to military personnel .

According to Roksolana Pidlasa, head of the parliamentary budget committee, to cover these expenses, Ukraine has asked the European Commission to allow it to use European support money for defense needs.

In addition, the formation of the State Budget for the next year is currently underway in Ukraine. The document is currently under consideration by various parliamentary committees, which are making their proposals to the draft estimate. State Budget expenditures are planned at 4.8 trillion hryvnias, almost half of which requires external financing.

Meanwhile, the European Solidarity faction demands that all non-targeted expenses be removed from the budget and the money be directed to the needs of the Armed Forces.

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