Ukraine to spend 1.16 trillion hryvnias on military salaries in 2025

President Volodymyr Zelensky has green-lit Ukraine’s state budget for 2025 that allocates 26.3% of the country’s GDP—2.23 trillion hryvnias—to defense. This marks an increase of 47.6 billion hryvnias in spending on the defense sectory compared to 2024.

Ukraine’s defense minister Rustem Umerov took to social media on Friday to reveal on what these funds will be spent:

  • 1.16 trillion hryvnias will go on military salaries, 10 billion hryvnias more than in 2024.
  • 739 billion hryvnias will be spent on purchases and upgrade of  weapons and military equipment.
  • 55.1 billion hryvnias will help modernize the defense industry and develop advanced technologies.

Additional funding has also been earmarked for acquiring drone systems such as the DeepStrike platform.

In my previous column, I wrote about social innovations in Ukraine. Those innovations are part of civic resilience and the democratization of security, which Europe is paying close attention to right now. The EU is trying to work out how to spread responsibility for its own security across society as a whole, rather than leaving it to institutions alone. It is looking for concrete ways to bring ordinary people into the work of defense and resistance.

Petro Poroshenko’s lawyers have appealed to the High Anti-Corruption Court demanding that NABU be obligated to register proceedings regarding the fact of exerting influence on the court and to recognize Petro Poroshenko as a victim in the case of the Deputy Head of the Office of the President, Iryna Mudra, due to her pressure on Supreme Court judges who were considering a lawsuit to overturn sanctions.

Internationally recognized brands and financial institutions should direct capital to Ukraine now, not waiting for the hostilities to end. This was emphasized by Rinat Akhmetov, president of FC Shakhtar, during a working visit to UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, where he met with UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin.

In recent days, Moscow’s official rhetoric has been dominated by hysteria over the decision of…

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.