"I don't understand": Finance Minister was surprised why volunteers raise money for the Armed Forces (video)

Therefore, it is not clear why volunteers still announce a meeting for the purchase of any things for the forces of defense - the available resources should be enough. The Minister of Finance Sergey Marchenko told about the financing of the Armed Forces in an interview with Forbes Ukraine. The journalists asked the minister why Ukrainians and the military were "dumped" with certain amounts to buy the right equipment.

Marchenko noted that volunteers could not compete with the capabilities of the state to keep the troops. In particular, 5 billion UAH from the State Budget to the Armed Forces comes from the State Budget. Local authorities are entrusted with this amount. In particular, they have the opportunity to allocate 15-20 billion UAH daily for the army. That is, if there is no money in the state budget, then only at the expense of these funds the army will last for another 3-4 days.

Meanwhile, volunteers and non -governmental organizations are raising funds for the military. "I myself do not understand why we are still providing the assembly of servicemen," the minister said. According to the official, there should be sufficient weapons and military equipment in military warehouses. Therefore, it is not necessary to ask him, but from the "specific performers" who are responsible for this area.

The Minister also spoke about the financing of mobilization of 500 thousand people, which President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky spoke in his speech: such a number of new military will require UAH 500 billion. Marchenko emphasized that this figure is very indicative because it was received from the general calculation: today one million people of the Ukrainian army are 1 trillion UAH.

It should be noted that on the OpenDATABOT portal, on the basis of open data from the largest volunteer funds of Ukraine, you can find out what amount Ukrainians collected for the needs of the army. As of October 2023, it is UAH 12. 5 billion over 9 months. Information on the need for UAH 500 billion to provide mobilization of 500 thousand Ukrainians was heard during the final press conference, which was conducted on December 19 by President Zelensky.