No Money for Defense: Ukraine’s 2026 Budget Fails the Armed Forces

Source: Author’s Facebook page

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has approved the 2026 budget — a plan that leaves the army without funding while billions are allocated for PR campaigns and political priorities.

Ukraine continues to fight, losing its best people every day, yet the government has once again adopted a budget that fails to meet the real needs of the front and society. Instead of making defence an absolute priority, the document preserves expenditures unrelated to the survival of the state.

What did the budget have enough money for?

The 2026 budget allocates sums that are, at the very least, questionable:

🔹 Over 15 million hryvnias for deputies’ trips — with no reports, no clear benefits, and no assessment of effectiveness. In wartime, this appears more like a luxury than a state necessity.

🔹 Over 60 million hryvnias for the parliamentary media project, including a TV channel funded by taxpayers that provides information selectively, serving the interests of the authorities rather than the public.

🔹 Increased spending on the State Bureau of Investigation, the Prosecutor General’s Office, and the Office of the President, despite repeated criticism from the EU and international institutions. This is not public information — it serves to finance one-sided, politically motivated PR

🔹 4 billion hryvnias for “strategic communications” of the President’s Office — effectively a massive, uncontrolled media fund.

Experiments, propaganda initiatives, and promoting one’s own image under the guise of “communications.” In military reality, these billions are needed in a completely different place.

Parallel reality: the military has to provide for itself.

Against the backdrop of these expenditures. Shockingly, a large part of the military is forced to buy ammunition with their own money. This is the reality of 2026: the state pours billions into PR, yet cannot provide defenders with basic tactical necessities.

At a time when the front urgently needs:

• drones

• communication equipment

• transport

• medicines

• basic gear

official offices receive increased funding, and political media projects are granted lavish budgets.

Where is the reform? Where is the cost reduction? What about the downsizing of the bureaucracy?

The budget preserves all the “traditional” corruption and lobbying lines. Instead of optimizing the state apparatus, cutting inefficient institutions, and eliminating shadow funds, the authorities are doing the opposite — leaving everything as it was and even adding new schemes.

At the same time, the budget does not propose:
* real strengthening of support for the military,
* increase in salaries for defence personnel,
* increased costs for providing brigades,
* procurement reform,
* transparency of the distribution of funds.

In a warring country, the budget should be built around a single priority – defence. Everything else – cultural projects, communications, PR, expensive “television” experiments – can wait.

The European Solidarity faction voted against, because this budget:
• does not increase salaries for military personnel,
• does not remove traces of Mindichgate from ministries,
• does not provide for the army,
• does not meet EU requirements regarding anti-corruption standards,
• maintains opaque hand funds for political PR.

Ukraine should receive an honest, transparent, and military budget, not political PR, media control, or maintenance of the apparatus.

If the government continues to stash billions in “strategic communications” and divert funds away from the front lines, this is not a development budget. It is a budget of illusions — and certainly not the budget of a country fighting for its very survival.

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