Poroshenko slams 2025 state budget: “It doesn’t align with Zelenskyy’s resilience plan”

Source: Petro Poroshenko/Telegram

The 2025 state budget approved by the Verkhovna Rada on Tuesday caught flak from former Ukrainian president and opposition leader Petro Poroshenko who argued the financial plan is failing to address the priorities of a nation at war.

The former president said, “This budget was supposed to be a budget of victory. How can you talk about victory when defense spending hasn’t increased by a single hryvnia? Instead of raising salaries for soldiers, you’re boosting pay for prosecutors, judges, and law enforcement officials. Where is the courage to oppose this?”

He is argued that the decision to allocate 1.5 billion hryvnias for the national TV marathon and a 1,000-hryvnia allowance program as politically motivated.

“If we are moving toward [joining] Europe, we should heed the EU’s expansion report, which calls for eliminating funding for propaganda TV marathons. And this 1,000 hryvnias—bribing every Ukrainian—is nothing but electioneering in disguise. Ukrainians don’t take bribes,” Poroshenko said.

The 2025 budget projects revenue at 2.336 trillion hryvnias, expenditures at 3.938 trillion hryvnias (a 19% increase compared to 2024), a deficit of 1.546 trillion hryvnias (19.4% of GDP, slightly down from 20.6% in 2024), external financing of $38.823 billion, GDP growth of 2.7%, and an exchange rate of 45 hryvnias per USD.

Spending priorities include defense and security at 2.223 trillion hryvnias (26.3% of GDP), social protection at 419.2 billion hryvnias, healthcare at 210.7 billion hryvnias, education at 169.3 billion hryvnias, culture and media at 9.6 billion hryvnias, pensions at 237.9 billion hryvnias, and support for war veterans at 5.8 billion hryvnias.

Military and security spending increases include the Ministry of Defense at 34.7%, military intelligence at 37.3%, and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) at 18.8%.

The minimum wage and living wage will remain at 2024 levels, with the average monthly salary projected to reach 24,000 hryvnias.