Populism above all else: the government is cutting military spending and preparing for elections

The Verkhovna Rada’s consideration of the draft State Budget for 2026 showed that the government is “preparing for elections, not for victory.” The document cuts defense spending, but instead again provides for “populist pre-election steps,” such as the “wool thousand” or cashbacks.

This was stated on the air of “Pryamoy” by the People’s Deputy from “European Solidarity” Iryna Gerashchenko.

“This is not the budget of a warring country again. When the Russian Federation increases its military budget several times, increases military production, and plans to increase the production of “Shaheeds” to a thousand by the end of the year, it is difficult for me to imagine how our air defense will cope with this. What do we see in the draft budget for 2026? No conclusions have been drawn from the mistakes of this year’s budget, when it was reviewed three times in parliament, looking for ways to patch up holes in the security and defense sector,” Gerashchenko noted.

At the same time, according to her, the authorities are cutting spending on the security sector. “Several programs are being cut altogether, in particular the program for repairing equipment. Apparently, our government has some secret information that we will not have to repair our equipment, and this is all very surprising. By the way, they are cutting by 4 billion,” the MP adds.

At the same time, she informs, “another strategic item for the authorities, which is preparing for elections, not for victory,” is increasing by the same amount of 4 billion.

“This is strategic communications. And 1.5 billion remains for the marathon, and 200 billion is allocated to the reserve fund. We remember that from this fund, for example, in 2025, money went not to the army again, but to such populist pre-election steps as “a thousand for the war”, cashback and so on. By the way, 4 billion hryvnias were also spent on cashback this year, and moreover, the list of goods that support Ukrainian cashback includes several thousand items. The same items that people will buy anyway are products, food and so on,” explains Gerashchenko.

She also drew attention to the fact that the draft State Budget for 2026 was considered in an empty hall of the Verkhovna Rada.

“I was also scared by the atmosphere of the hall… Today we considered the draft budget in an empty hall, when there were much more opposition deputies than this so-called monomajority, which has long become a minority. And this irresponsibility, although people will vote for what they did not read, what they did not understand, what they did not think about, is terrible,” emphasized Iryna Gerashchenko, a member of parliament from the European Solidarity faction.

As a reminder, on September 19, the People’s Deputies adopted for consideration the draft State Budget of Ukraine for 2026. This marks the formal start of the budget process in parliament. The People’s Deputies will have until October 1 to review the document and submit their proposals. Then, the approval of the budget proposals (“first reading”) must take place by October 20, and, according to the Budget Code, the budget must be finally approved (“second reading”) by November 20.

Earlier, during a speech in the Verkhovna Rada, co-chair of the European Solidarity faction, Iryna Gerashchenko, called on the authorities to pay attention to the glaring problems of internally displaced persons. She emphasized that next year’s budget should be directed primarily to providing for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and internally displaced persons.

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