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.
In 2025, the deadliest year yet for civilians, Ukraine’s three largest charitable foundations raised a record 105.9 billion hryvnias. It is more than the years 2022–2024 combined. According to the UN, humanitarian aid in Ukraine was delivered by more than 450 organisations, reaching five million people over the course of the year. Civic foundations hold licences to purchase lethal weapons, which is a function states have monopolised for centuries. These record sums were underwritten by international government grants, which means foreign states now channel billions directly through Ukrainian civic funds, bypassing inter-state channels. It is hard to imagine a stronger institutional trust in civil society.
During the GLOBSEC Defence Forum 2026 in Prague, representatives of “Steel Front”, an initiative by Rinat Akhmetov, discussed with NATO delegations, military officials, and representatives of the European defense industry the lessons learned from Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.
After the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine witnessed an unprecedented wave of private support for the army. Citizens, big businesses, charitable foundations, and international philanthropists began financing the country’s defense alongside state assistance provided by international partners. Estimates of total private contributions range from tens to hundreds of billions of hryvnias. However, determining the exact amount remains difficult. In many cases, companies combine military aid, humanitarian programs, tax payments, social spending, and employee support in their reporting.
Rinat Akhmetov’s military initiative, “Steel Front”, has delivered a batch of drones worth UAH 214 million to the 1st “Azov” Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine. This shipment is part of the Metinvest Group’s ongoing support for the unit in 2025.
On October 6, the Administrative Cassation Court within the Supreme Court of Ukraine continued hearing case No. 990/80/25, in which the fifth President and leader of the party “European Solidarity”, Petro Poroshenko, seeks to have Presidential Decree No. 81/2025 from February 12, 2025 — enacting sanctions by the decision of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) — declared illegal and annulled. The plaintiff claims the document was falsified and that the sanctions are a tool of political persecution of the opposition, contrary to international norms. Government representatives deny the allegations and insist their actions were lawful. Journalists of Bukvy were present at the hearing.