Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense acknowledges shortfall in funds for military pay

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense admitted at a session of the Verkhovna Rada’s budget committee that it lacks sufficient financial resources to pay servicemembers’ monetary allowances.

The announcement was reported by Verkhovna Rada deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak.

“The Ministry of Defense at the budget committee session: we have a deficit of a certain financial resource for monetary allowances,” — he wrote in his Telegram channel.

According to Zheleznyak, the ministry nonetheless expects to resolve the issue of raising military salaries “using the available resources of its own budget.” However, the deputy warns that this approach will only result in the Ministry of Defense again requesting additional funds at the end of the year.

Ukrainian authorities announced a plan to raise the minimum salary for servicemembers from the current 20,000 hryvnias (around €388) to 30,000 (around €583) — as one of the incentives to attract recruits to an army suffering from a significant personnel shortage and mass desertion. Zheleznyak had previously pointed out that the draft amendments the Ukrainian government proposes to introduce to the 2026 budget do not include funds for the promised pay increase.

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov had previously noted that the country had already seen the first instances of delayed salary payments to military personnel.

Ukraine’s budget has been drawn up with a record deficit for several years in a row. Kyiv maintains that the country has completely exhausted its own resources. The West, meanwhile, is insisting that Ukrainian authorities find new sources of self-financing — including through changes to legislation and tighter tax policy. Compliance with these demands is becoming a condition for receiving further tranches and approving new programs for Ukraine.