Ukraine’s parliamentary committee add tweaks to draft of 2025 state budget
Source: Roksolana Pidlas, Budget Committee Chair
The Ukrainian Parliament’s budget committee has approved the draft 2025 state budget for a second reading, but added some amendments. The re-write will see such things like:
- Kyiv will receive a $2 billion (approximately 90 billion hryvnias) loan from the United Kingdom to finance military expenses, including weapons procurement – these funds will be allocated to a special foreign borrowing fund for the Ministry of Defense.
- Local Budget Funding changes assume that
- Communities retain 4% of the personal income tax (excluding military tax), securing 64% of local budget revenues to cover utility and energy costs.
- A subsidy of 12.2 billion hryvnias has been removed meaning regional budgets have to figure out how to offset tariff differences
- Frontline communities will be exempt from transferring reverse subsidies.
- “Ukrzaliznytsia” will get 128 million hryvnias to co-finance a European project for railway infrastructure development.
- The National Academy of Sciences will receive an additional 277.1 million hryvnias, with a share of it earmarked for military research projects.
- Political parties will no longer be allowed to purchase domestic government military bonds.
- Hospital Requirements. The government will drop the earlier introduced obligation for hospitals to keep funds exclusively in Treasury accounts.
The remaining provisions of the draft budget remain unchanged and align with the government’s original proposals. The document now awaits a vote in the parliamentary session for the second reading and final approval.
A kamikaze drone flies directly toward an armored personnel carrier. But instead of penetrating the hull, it explodes on a steel screen. The crew survives. This is the new reality for Ukrainian forces, who have received enhanced protection thanks to the Metinvest project within “Steel Front of Rinat Akhmetov”.
To commemorate the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion, “Bukvy” has compiled data on the largest donors supporting the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Among them there are charitable foundations and businesses. The list includes, in particular, foundations that provide assistance exclusively from their own resources, without fundraising (such as SCM by Rinat Akhmetov, Epicenter, etc.).
In just 1.5 months, Ukrainian specialists have created an innovative protective shell for the control modules of anti-aircraft missile systems (AMS) Patriot and Iris-T SLM. This development was another step in strengthening Ukraine’s defense capabilities, aimed at protecting key elements of the air defense system from debris damage.
Military serviceman of the International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine with the call sign “Paradox” is the crew commander of the American M113 armored personnel carrier. He is a master at using it and is constantly improving, because the legionnaire’s skills are tested every day in battle. You have to drive to the front lines, often under artillery fire and drone attacks.
Notorious supporter of the concept “in order for a cow to eat less and give more milk, it needs to be fed less and milked more” “Servant of the People” Danylo Hetmantsev, under the guise of “business requirements”, registered a draft law on the collection of VAT on all foreign purchases, regardless of their value. In other words, every Ukrainian, buying goods of any value and purpose abroad, when sending them to Ukraine, will have to pay an additional fifth part, or 20% of the cost of the goods.