Defense Ministry to need UAH 44.7 bln in budget funds in 2015
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry will need UAH 44.7 billion in budget funds in 2015, mainly for the maintenance of the Armed Forces, Defense Ministry spokeswoman Viktoria Kushnir has said.
"The Defense Ministry's budget request for next year is UAH 44.7 billion. Of this amount, UAH 14.1 billion is to be spent on the development of arms and military equipment, UAH 1.9 billion on the training of troops, and UAH 28.7 billion on the maintenance of the Armed Forces," she said at a briefing in Kyiv on Thursday.
She said that the ministry's demand for financial resources in 2014 was UAH 31.307 billion and that UAH 26.347 billion had been obtained from the budget as of December 25. These funds were used to purchase 44,600 bulletproof vests, 22,000 Kevlar helmets, 240,000 pairs of footwear, and over 150,000 tonnes of fuel. In addition, she said, these funds were also used for the receipt of modernized and restored arms and equipment for the troops and for the payment of wages to personnel and provision of them with food.
Kushnir also said that the Defense Ministry had received UAH 153 million as a charity, including about UAH 70 million from legal entities, UAH 43 million from individuals and UAH 37 million from mobile operators. Another UAH 3 million was transferred to foreign currency accounts.
As reported, the Defense Ministry said earlier that the draft state budget for 2015 envisaged a significant increase in spending on the needs of the Armed Forces, including on social security.
The National Security and Defense Council decided at a meeting last Saturday that funds to be allocated from Ukraine's budget for defense and security in 2015 should account for 5% of GDP, including 3% of GDP for defense alone.
"This is UAH 86 billion, which is a huge increase in the budget of this sector," NSDC Secretary Oleksandr Turchynov said at the meeting.
In his words, of the amount, UAH 80 billion will be provided as budget funds, while UAH 6 billion will be provided as state guarantees against the purchase of arms, equipment and necessary supplies for the army.
