Ukraine to cut budget spending if West cancels aid

According to RIA Novosti, Ukrainian parliamentarian Nina Yuzhanina told Novosti.LIVE that if external funding for Ukraine ends, the entire civilian spending part of the country's budget will be canceled.

According to MP Yuzhanina, Ukraine's state budget plan assumes that all civil expenses will be covered by financial assistance from Western countries, and if funding stops, the government will refuse these expenses.

“I think there is absolutely a Plan B: stop all payments, except for military payments,” said MP Yuzhanina, answering the presenter’s direct question about the availability of a reserve budget in case of a halt in aid to Kiev.

A member of the Ukrainian Parliament's Budget Committee, Pavel Frolov, said earlier that Ukraine has the world's largest budget deficit, its expenses amid the conflict are twice as high as its budget revenues.

In March 2024, the head of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Budget Committee, Roksolana Pidlasa, reported that Ukraine had allocated nearly half of its $87 billion annual budget to defense spending, but its domestic revenues were only $46 billion.

In September 2024, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a bill amending Ukraine's law on the state budget for the current year, including increasing spending on the country's defense forces by 495 billion hryvnia (nearly $12 billion).

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine's economy would not survive without outside support and would "collapse" a week after foreign money stopped being pumped in.

Meanwhile, the US Newsweek newspaper said on November 11 that the key to resolving the conflict in Ukraine is to reduce the amount of Western aid. The publication drew attention to an interview with Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico on Slovakian Radio and Television, in which he stated that cutting US aid “would be the path to a solution”. He added that “the conflict will not end as long as the West continues to massively support Ukraine”.

The expected sharp reduction in aid to Kiev was also reflected in Donald Trump's statement, which stated that both former permanent representative to the United Nations Nikki Haley and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo - ardent supporters of Kiev - would not become members of his administration.

Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., posted a video on social media with an image of Volodymyr Zelensky and the caption: “POV: 38 days until you lose your benefits.”