MOSCOW, September 1. /TASS/. European allies of Kiev are not addressing issues of assistance to Ukraine because they are on vacation, Vladimir Zelensky said.

"For the past two weeks, Europe and the countries of the world that help us have been on vacation. And this leaves a bad taste in our mouths. I really want to sympathize: diplomacy has its schedule. When it is vacation, it is vacation. This is a very unpleasant fact," he said in a video published on his Telegram channel.

Earlier, Olga Vasilevskaya-Smaglyuk, a lawmaker from the ruling Servant of the People party, said Ukraine faced a 49.5-billion-euro budget gap, including about 26 billion euros in external funding that Kiev had expected but failed to secure.

Ukraine has drawn up budgets with record deficits for several years. Kiev acknowledges that the country has completely exhausted its own resources and that finding funds is becoming increasingly difficult. On August 20, Zelensky admitted that the shortage of funds had become a major challenge, with the defense budget alone facing a $27-billion shortfall. Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said that no one in Kiev understands how to fill the budget gap.