Ukraine spends UAH130B a month on its Army - Shmyhal

Currently, about UAH 130 billion is spent on maintaining the Ukrainian Army every month.

That’s according to Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, who spoke in an interview with LB.ua, Ukrinform reports.

"If we used to have nearly UAH 156 billion for maintaining the Army – that’s the annual budget of the Armed Forces – today UAH 130 billion is a monthly amount. Of course, social payments, demining costs, urgent recovery costs, those for internally displaced persons have greatly increased in our country," Shmyhal said.

He noted that more than UAH 30 billion was paid to people within the framework of the eSupport program alone. The monthly budget of Ukraine is about UAH 250 billion, of which Ukraine receives UAH 70 billion to UAH 100 billion off taxes and customs duties.

"There is a gap of $4 billion - $5 billion - this is a monthly requirement. Today, agreements have been reached on such support - in the amount of almost $29 billion, of which we have already received quite a large amount. Some $20 billion remains. This is assistance from the European Union, the United States of America, and Canada. Separately, there is also direct budget support from the European Union member states. There is grant and credit support from international financial institutions: IMF, World Bank, and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. That is, today all our partners have actively joined in and are helping us," the head of government said.

In principle, Shmyhal noted, all this money is enough to fulfill the country's social and humanitarian obligations.

"Of course, today we have to take measures to optimize costs, we call on businesses to resume operations, to be as responsible as possible when it comes to paying taxes. Therefore, I’d like to say that we see the situation by the end of the year as predictable, we understand how we will fulfill the budget as we feel the support on the part of our partners, which allows us today to think about Ukraine’s defenses, support the Armed Forces, and work quite calmly," the prime minister emphasized.