Ukraine’s $27 billion black hole Billions in aid, yet the Army needs more 

As the classic writer once wrote, manuscripts do not burn. Financial reports do not burn either, including in Ukraine, which has been confronting a huge country possessing nuclear weapons and an overwhelming advantage in population for more than four years—Russia. However, this time the issue is not Russia, but the situation within the Ukrainian state itself.

As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a press conference following the “coalition of the willing” summit, Ukraine’s budget faces a $27 billion funding shortfall for its Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). He also noted that Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence had used the funds allocated in the budget through the end of this year, and, according to him, the money was spent on drone production and other needs.

One of the main options now under consideration is to provide, ahead of schedule—in other words, already this year—the funds from a European loan that had been planned for 2027.

It is worth noting that Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who recently visited Kyiv, stated that her country’s military assistance to Ukraine would not be subject to any time limit. Copenhagen intends to continue supplying weapons, assisting with air defence, and supporting Ukraine’s defence industry for as long as necessary to protect the country from Russia.

Almost simultaneously, Norway announced plans to provide Ukraine with another 85 billion Norwegian kroner — approximately $9.2 billion — in 2027. Of this amount, around 70 billion kroner is expected to be allocated to military assistance, while 15 billion kroner will go toward civilian needs. Thus, there is some hope that the budget deficit facing the Ukrainian military can be reduced, at least to some extent.

However, Zelenskyy’s statement has also drawn criticism from his political opponents. For example, Volodymyr Ariev, a member of the Verkhovna Rada from the European Solidarity party and a former PACE vice president, made a corresponding post on his Facebook page:

“Let’s do the math together. Off-the-books wages: losses to the budget of up to 260 billion hryvnias a year. Smuggling and ‘grey’ imports: up to 125 billion hryvnias. Splitting large businesses into individual entrepreneurs: 25 billion. Cash-out schemes: up to 28 billion. Tax ‘rollbacks’: up to 15 billion. Illegal trade in excisable goods: up to 40 billion in losses. Offshore schemes: losses of up to 14 billion. Schemes involving the taxation of land and real estate: up to 17 billion. That makes 524 billion hryvnias just from these schemes. That is already almost half the amount.

Then there is the gambling business operating without paying taxes, pointless budget expenditures that provide opportunities for people with dirty hands to line their pockets, as well as corruption involving kickbacks and bribes, where money is now measured in sacks. It is difficult to give specific figures here, but a couple of hundred billion hryvnias could easily be found. Ideally, of course, but there will be no ideal. Tell me, what urgent need is there to build a new administrative building for the police department in Kyiv’s Holosiivskyi district for 211 million hryvnias?! The tender has already been posted. Have they simply grown tired of the old district police station? What do you call this? And this is just one example.

If Zelenskyy’s government wanted to, the money for defence would be found, and these schemes would be eliminated. The powers granted under martial law are sufficient for this. However, the authorities are using these powers to steal money by the sack themselves, while banning, intimidating and pressuring their opponents through law enforcement agencies and special services. The only thing they fail to take into account is that patience is running out — both among Ukrainians and among Western partners.”

Former Verkhovna Rada lawmaker and now popular blogger Boryslav Bereza expressed a similar view. He wrote: “If we recall that 19 billion hryvnias was spent on the populist ‘Winter eSupport’ and ‘Zelenskyy’s thousand,’ 6.7 billion on the ‘National Cashback’ program, while funds were allocated for 2.2 million users under the ‘eBook’ program, the total will be slightly more than those same 27 billion. In other words, for Zelenskyy’s PR, they spent an amount that is now lacking to make payments to military personnel. That is all you need to know about the thinking and priorities of Zelenskyy and Svyrydenko. And about why Ukraine cannot win under the leadership of a showman whose entire entourage is under suspicion of corruption.”

Harsh, certainly, but it is nevertheless obvious that during Zelenskyy’s presidency, Ukraine has demonstrated an utterly shocking scale of corruption. At the same time, none of those accused of corruption has ended up behind bars. All of this is seen both by Ukrainian society and by foreign partners, who are well aware of how many billions of dollars in aid Kyiv has received throughout the bloody war.

At the same time, throughout the entire period of the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war, the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been supported through nationwide fundraising efforts. A huge number of bloggers, including Boryslav Bereza, have regularly launched fundraising campaigns to purchase everything needed by one Ukrainian military brigade or another. Moreover, even Russian YouTubers Maxim Katz and Michael Nacke regularly raise funds for the Ukrainian army, which, in my view, is a shameful situation for a state whose allies have provided such enormous amounts of military and financial assistance.

Be that as it may, if Zelenskyy’s previous statements about shortages of weapons and funding were met with unequivocal understanding by the international community, that understanding has been steadily diminishing after each new corruption scandal. At the same time, Ukraine’s allies cannot simply stop supporting Kyiv, because the consequences of such a move would quickly be felt not so much by members of the Ukrainian leadership as by the country itself, given that Russia has shown no intention of abandoning its plans regarding Ukraine.