Nina Yuzhanina: How can we maintain the National Cashback program when our Armed Forces are underfunded?

During a briefing, Nina Yuzhanina, a member of parliament from the European Solidarity faction, called on the authorities to remove all non-targeted expenditures from the state budget in favor of funding the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

She noted that spending funds on the National Cashback program or “Thousand Spring” in the context of underfunding of the Defense Forces is unacceptable.

“For years now, our parliamentary faction, when introducing amendments to the State Budget, has insisted that pay increases and funding for the Armed Forces of Ukraine be implemented with each budget revision. It is absolutely clear that, in its current state, Ukraine’s budget underfunds the Armed Forces.

“We strive to prevent the redistribution of funds through internal documents and Cabinet of Ministers orders, and to avoid using individual programs as slush funds that are then used for populist spending. We strive to ensure exclusively transparent financing through special programs that are adopted and monitored by Verkhovna Rada deputies or at least by members of the Budget Committee.

“We can’t allow the executive branch to allocate funds at its own discretion. This can’t continue. These non-priority ‘Thousandth’ expenses are a clear example. We’re talking about almost 2 billion rubles for feature films and TV series. If we consider the names of each area where these 4 billion are being used, we have every reason to prohibit such colossal expenditures from being made without specific programs, simply wasting them on air, not for the Armed Forces,” Yuzhanina believes.

“How can we leave the National Cashback program when our Armed Forces are underfunded? For five years now, we’ve been fighting for increased funding for the Armed Forces, despite every amendment to the state budget. The Ministry of Defense has repeatedly thanked us for supporting their position and openly fighting for literally every budget figure,” Yuzhanina said.

She also recalled that European Solidarity demands compliance with the law and an increase in the share of military income tax allocated to brigades’ accounts to 20%. “Brigades spend their funds efficiently. Therefore, we once again emphasize that the government must implement the legal provision we reached and succeeded in enforcing last time: that by the end of the first quarter of 2026, that is, right now, we will review the military income tax distribution procedure and increase the brigades’ funds to 20% of the total distribution amount. This amounts to an additional 7.8 billion hryvnias. I am confident that the brigades will definitely be able to provide for themselves more quickly and effectively,” Nina Yuzhanina noted.