No drones, no stadiums, just false promises

The Office of the President, through the Verkhovna Rada (mono-majority) and the Cabinet of Ministers, spent ₴113 billion on roads in 2022-2023. What about the army?

A year ago, a wave of public actions swept across the country. Quite audacious actions under the slogans “Money for the Armed Forces of Ukraine!”, “Drones instead of stadiums!”, Under the cover of which the central government took away “military personal income tax” funds from local communities.

We are talking about the so-called income tax for individuals serving in the defense forces. And we must say, the results are impressive; just look for yourself:

• 35% of the funds withdrawn from local communities to the state budget in 2023 were never used by the end of the year;
• 55% of the “military personal income tax” funds have not been used, that is, ₴45.3 billion collected in January-July 2024.

During the war, the state turned out to be a bottomless pocket of clumsy and irresponsible managers, divorced from the real needs of the military.

Significantly less effective in providing the Ukrainian Defense Forces than territorial communities (villages, towns, towns and cities). Of course, not everything is as simple above as it seems from below.

The Ministry of Defense has managed to absorb its share of the funds, but the failure falls entirely on the Ministry of Strategic Industries. But that doesn’t make it any easier...

How could it be easier for tens of thousands of activists, whose sincere patriotic impulse was shamelessly used for this dubious confiscation. By the way, on the initiative of a structure with the eloquent name “Office of Simple Solutions”.

Although there was a systematic and simple solution to this issue - to oblige local authorities to spend 100% of the “military personal income tax” funds on purchases, including UAVs, and direct assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, tightly controlling prices and financial flows.

It turns out that even during a war, decentralization can be more effective than centralization, so what other Ermakov reforms are you missing? Eat, don’t get covered in the blood of our defenders.