“This is an election budget, not a wartime budget”: MP criticizes Ukraine’s draft state budget for 2026

Ukrainian MP from the Holos party, Yaroslav Zheleznyak, criticized Ukraine’s draft budget for next year, noting that it allocates less funding for defense than is already required now.

Zheleznyak wrote about this on his Telegram channel.

According to him, the document does not take into account the additional deficit of military expenditures of 300 billion hryvnias (~€6.17 billion) that exists this year.

For monetary support and other payments to the military, the 2026 budget provides 1.143 trillion hryvnias (~€23.49 billion), which is only 17.15 billion hryvnias (~€0.35 billion) more than in 2025, where there is already a hole of hundreds of billions.

For the purchase and repair of equipment and ammunition, 678.12 billion hryvnias (~€13.94 billion) is allocated — 4.65 billion hryvnias (~€0.10 billion) less than envisaged in the current budget.

Zheleznyak also drew attention to the fact that more is planned to be spent on various social programs and pre-election initiatives than on increasing payments to the military. And expenditures on “strategic communications, information security, and measures for European integration” have been increased tenfold — to 4 billion hryvnias (~€0.082 billion).

“This is not the budget of a country at war, but the budget of elections,” the deputy believes.

His colleague Bohdan Kutsak stated that there are no signs of elections in Ukraine in the near future. He believes that the stabilization at the front necessary for elections is not expected in the coming months. Kutsak also disagrees with Zheleznyak’s opinion that the 2026 budget is connected with preparations for elections, since half of its financing depends on international partners.

It should be recalled that earlier the media wrote that in Ukraine’s draft budget for next year, social expenditures are increasing significantly more than defense expenditures. Moreover, they are to be financed at the expense of aid from foreign partners. But the question remains open whether European leaders are ready to give the Ukrainian authorities money to accelerate the growth of social expenditures, while at the same time urging the populations of their countries to tighten their belts and prepare for a reduction in social standards in order to increase military budgets and continue aid to Kyiv.

As the media previously wrote, People’s Deputy from the Servant of the People party, Dmytro Cherny, predicts early elections to the Verkhovna Rada. According to him, the current term is coming to an end, and already next year the country will probably have a new composition of parliament.