Defense budget 2016 must foresee army's contract orientation – Poroshenko

16:06, 08.09.2015 1 min read

The National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) must quickly consider the defense budget of Ukraine for 2016 which must reflect an increase in defense expenses and the transfer of the army to a contract basis, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said during a government meeting on Tuesday.

"We must foresee [in the 2016 defense budget] a growth of fund provisions for the [military] servicemen and National Guard servicemen," Poroshenko said, adding that "if we talking about the contract army, each contract soldier must be properly financed."

According to Poroshenko, taking into account the threats to the country's defense capacity, Ukraine has no option other than to increase its defense expenditure.

"We spend 40 times less on the army than the country-aggressor [Russia]."

The state budget approved for 2015 earmarked UAH 90 billion for national security and defense, of which UAH 44.6 billion was to be allocated to maintain the army.