A $27 Billion Hole: Will Ukraine’s Military Get Paid?

Start with the number. $27 billion. Not hryvnia, not euros — dollars. To put it in perspective: that’s roughly half of Ukraine’s entire pre-war annual budget. And it’s just the defense sector deficit — the gap between what the army needs to fight and get paid, and what the state can actually fund.

Prime Minister Koretskyi announced this figure from the rostrum — calmly, almost matter-of-factly. Seven billion, he said, will be “found domestically”; the rest will come from “partner support.” Sounds like a plan. But what does “found domestically” really mean?

Here’s where the magic of budget populism begins.

“Found domestically” usually means cutting social spending, raising taxes, or finding new revenue sources. The government is already eyeing VAT on international parcels. Seriously. While the army counts days until payday, bureaucrats count how much they can squeeze from AliExpress packages. The irony is bitter: the “unconditional priority of defense” in practice means “defense is a priority — until we have to touch officials’ salaries.”

Cutting civil servants’ pay? Taboo. Slimming the bureaucracy? Also taboo. Instead — let’s tax parcels, hike fuel excises, slash subsidies. Then maybe the $7 billion will “appear.”

But there’s a catch. Even if they scrape together those $7 billion domestically, $20 billion still need to come from the EU. And the EU isn’t an ATM. It’s negotiations, memoranda, conditions, reforms, deadlines. While Brussels deliberates, Kyiv is patching holes — shuffling 50 billion hryvnia ($1.3 billion) from other budget lines to cover military pay. That’s a band-aid, not a solution.

And here’s the question no one in parliament seems to ask: who gets cut first — combat pay or social benefits?

If the choice is between a soldier’s salary and a pensioner’s subsidy, the government will likely choose the “golden mean”: cut both. Soldiers get not the promised raise, but another delay. Pensioners get another tariff hike.

The irony is that the “unconditional priority” becomes conditional every time it hits a specific budget line. Defense is unconditional — but let’s first plug the holes in Naftogaz. Defense is unconditional — but let’s index MPs’ salaries. Defense is unconditional — but VAT on parcels is for the army too, right?

Three ironic points worth noting.

First: the government’s “anti-crisis measures” never start with cutting its own expenses. Saving everything except official salaries is by now a tradition.

Second: the phrase “unconditional priority” from Ukrainian officials sounds like a mantra. Repeated so often it’s lost all meaning. An unconditional priority means money is always there — not that you have to hunt for it under the couch cushions.

Third: hunting for money through VAT on parcels is like trying to patch a leaky roof with a straw. Seriously? A $27 billion hole, and you’re going after parcels?

All this unfolds as the 2027 budget is being submitted to the Verkhovna Rada. A document that should determine whether the army can fight next year is turning into a political bargaining chip. While deputies bargain, soldiers Google “why is my salary delayed.”

The conclusion is simple and grim. $27 billion isn’t just a number. It’s a measure of the government’s responsibility. And right now that measure looks like this: $7 we’ll find, $20 we’ll ask for, and the military — they’ll wait. The only question is whether they can afford to.