MOSCOW, November 26. /TASS/. Ukraine has already spent $38 billion on defense in 10 months of this year, which is almost all it planned to receive from domestic budget revenues, deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, Yaroslav Zheleznyak, said.
"The Finance Ministry writes that in just 10 months of the year we spent 1.6 trillion hryvnias ($38 billion at the current National Bank exchange rate - TASS) on defense alone. This is <...> almost all that was planned to be attracted by domestic revenues," he wrote on his Telegram channel.
The deputy added that this amount is comparable to the country's entire budget before the armed conflict.
The current year's Ukrainian budget initially included almost 1.7 trillion hryvnia ($46.9 billion at the time the document was adopted) for military needs. However, defense spending was subsequently increased. The government admits that it can only finance military expenses from domestic sources, and expects to cover all other budget items with assistance from Western partners.
Earlier on Tuesday, European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, said at a session of the European parliament in Strasbourg that the EU intends to invest 1 billion euros in the development of military production in Ukraine from the second tranche of 1.5 billion euros raised from immobilized Russian assets. He also noted that the EU and its member states have already spent 124 billion euros to support Ukraine, but this is not enough, and the Europeans should urgently step up their assistance to Kiev.