The draft state budget of Ukraine for 2024 provides for $41 billion in external financing, of which there is currently no confirmation of the receipt of $29 billion; next year, it will be necessary to look for additional internal sources of income, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko has said.

"This is my problem, how to cover them. This is the government's problem, the embassies' problem, the president's problem. We are looking for how to close these $29 billion," the minister of finance said at a webinar devoted to the "military" personal income tax organized by the Centre for Economic Strategy on Tuesday.

According to Marchenko, in the absence of funding in the range of $5-10 billion, this is a solvable problem "within the budgetary framework."

"In some places we will reduce expenses, in some places we may increase taxes. But if this problem is $20 billion, then I honestly don't know... Moreover, I am more than sure that it will be so, that next year we will return to the issue of finding additional resources," the minister of finance said.

He said that so far he does not have an answer to the question of how to cover all the necessary requests from the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces of Ukraine next year.

"Purely from the point of view of our restrictions in terms of taxation, we have reached the limit, and in terms of domestic borrowing, we are also close to the limit. Therefore, the search for internal resources is now the most urgent issue," Marchenko said.

In this regard, he once again noted the importance of redirecting UAH 122 billion of the "military" personal income tax to the state budget and local budgets, including UAH 25.8 billion this year and the remaining amount next year.

"I think this is not the last unpopular decision for 2024," the minister predicted, commenting on the redirection of the "military" personal income tax from local budgets to the state one.