As tradition demands, Ukraine’s leadership keeps pledging new increases in defense and security spending for 2021, while Russia’s war in Donbas continues with no end in sight.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said “the army remains a priority” as he presented next year’s state budget. President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to roll out new record-high defense appropriations or at least to not permit any cuts, calling this his “principled stance.”
Indeed, the 2021 state budget bill passed by the Verkhovna Rada on Dec. 15 encompasses Hr 267.1 billion ($9.6 billion) for defense, 8% more than in 2020.
According to the government, that amounts to nearly 6 percent of the country’s estimated gross domestic product. Considering that most NATO countries spend less than 2% of GDP on defense, that’s quite an accomplishment.
However, upon closer review, the accomplishments are exaggerated.
Despite bold promises, the Defense Ministry in 2021 is going to get only Hr 117.6 billion ($4.2 billion) — at least Hr 127 million less than what was spent on the armed forces in 2020.
The funding increase will go to the 300,000-employee Interior Ministry controlled by notorious power broker Arsen Avakov, the nation’s top cop. Avakov got a 4% spending bump for 2021, as did all departments under his command, such as the police and the National Guard.
Much more impressive are budget increases for the secret services, such as the Security Service of Ukraine.
Despite the COVID-19 economic downturn, the president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, promised record-high national security spending.
But that doesn’t translate into higher military spending. Yermak said that countering Russia’s war requires the “deployment of not only a conventional military force but also the whole of security arsenal that tackles as many tasks as the military guys do.”
As such, military spending was cut by 1%. Given the 7.3% projected inflation next year, the sting will be real.
Instead, the giant and powerful SBU will get Hr 12.4 billion ($450 million), 20% more than in 2020. The Foreign Intelligence Service will get Hr 4 billion ($140 million), almost a 70% increase from 2020. The same amount of money was allocated to the Main Directorate of Intelligence, the principal military intelligence body, which will see a 12% increase.
Avakov’s police will get Hr 35.5 billion ($1.2 billion), a 4.4% increase, and the National Guard will get Hr 13.7 billion ($490 million), a 3% increase, while his central administration will get 6.6% more.
The increases are not as impressive as the 46% growth in the budget of the Presidential Office or the 67% growth in the budget Office of the Prosecutor General, which has not prosecuted a single major corruption case.
Experts interviewed by the Kyiv Post said the budget falls short of the major investments required to modernize Ukraine’s defense forces.
“Military spending is not growing stronger,” said Taras Chmut, a marine veteran and chief editor with the Ukrainian Military Portal website.
“And the needs of the Armed Forces are not becoming less urgent. Time is not on our side as the military hardware and weapons keep growing older, the aircraft fleet needs a replacement. And the longer we delay strategic decisions of rearmament programs, the worse situation we’re going to find ourselves in after 5-10 years.
“This level of spending provides absolutely no solution to our strategic problems, such as missile defense, air defense, or naval power,” Chmut said.
In fact, the only reason the Defense Ministry’s 2021 budget is comparable with this year’s, is broad public support for the military that the government clearly feels, said Hlib Kanievskyi, a chairman with Kyiv-based watchdog StateWatch.
“The reason behind the Interior Ministry’s success in the quest for budget funding against other force agencies is the personality of minister Arsen Avakov, who remains unreplaceable since 2014 and who has become the government’s most powerful figure under president Zelensky,” the expert said.
“That is not the case for Defense Minister Andriy Taran, whose positions are increasingly weak — due to the failure of this year’s defense procurement plan and failure to prepare new regulations for new defense procurement bill,” he added.
