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Defense will cost Ukraine $13.61 billion more


MOSCOW, March 12. /TASS/. The budget of Ukraine for 2023 will be changed, spending on the armed forces will be increased by 500 billion hryvnia ($13.61 billion). This was announced by the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Yaroslav Zheleznyak.

“The budget for 2023 is planned to be changed. Military spending will be increased by more than half a trillion hryvnias. Yes, this is not a mistake, an increase of 500+ billion hryvnias,” he wrote on his Telegram channel on Sunday .

The MP stressed that this is the largest increase in the budget in the history of Ukraine.

Earlier, Zheleznyak reported that in January and February of this year, international partners transferred $6.3 billion to Ukraine as budget assistance.

In the budget of Ukraine for 2023, UAH 2.6 trillion of spending is planned, of which UAH 1.141 trillion is allocated for security and defense, which is 43% of all spending, or 18.2% of GDP. At the same time, spending on the Ministry of Defense was increased from UAH 133.5 billion in 2022 to UAH 857.9 billion in 2023.

Ukraine’s budget for 2023 has a record $38 billion deficit. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed hope that the West would help Kyiv cover the budget deficit.

Source: tass

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