Ukraine tables a 2027 budget with $110 billion for defence

Ukraine’s government sent a 2027 draft budget to parliament on 16 September that puts security and defence at 4.89 trillion hryvnias, about $110 billion. That is 12 percent more than this year and about two-thirds of planned spending of 7.27 trillion hryvnias. Revenue is put at 5.65 trillion. The Finance Ministry’s own note lists defence at 4.885 trillion, 11.9 percent above the 2026 law, and 43.8 percent of GDP.

Roksolana Pidlasa, who chairs the Rada budget committee, told deputies this would be the sixth budget of the full-scale war and that the war is getting more expensive faster than the tax base. She put the daily cost at $190 million this year, against $116 million in 2022. Finance Minister Serhii Marchenko said Ukraine will need more than $52 billion in external finance in 2027. Partners have committed about $20 billion. The rest is unfunded. Marchenko told the chamber that frozen Russian assets held in Europe could close a large part of that hole if governments agree to use them.

The defence line is broken out. Pay and related costs rise by 337.5 billion hryvnias to 1.792 trillion. Weapons and equipment are set at 2.299 trillion, up 1.4 billion. A reserve fund takes 264.9 billion. State guarantees for arms production take 30 billion. Pidlasa added that 35.7 percent of the defence total, about 1.73 trillion hryvnias, is European money for weapons that may arrive in kind and sits in the special fund. That is not cash Ukraine can redeploy to salaries if a shipment slips.

The calendar is tight. Deputies have until 1 October to file amendments. The budget must pass three readings by 1 December. A $27 billion defence shortfall for the current year is already on the books, according to Marchenko’s own reckoning. Some of that money is meant for higher service pay and for domestic munitions lines that have not yet reached the rates the general staff wants.

The political argument inside Kyiv is no longer whether defence takes two-thirds of the state. It is who fills the external gap. The $20 billion already pledged leaves more than $30 billion to find. Using immobilised Russian reserves would shift the burden from new appropriations in Berlin, Paris and Washington to a stock of assets that has been frozen since 2022. Several European capitals have discussed that step. None has closed it. If they do not, Marchenko will be back at the same table in the spring with a larger hole and a war that, on Pidlasa’s figures, now costs $74 million more each day than it did in the first year.

Revenue growth of 8.7 percent cannot cover spending growth of 13.5 percent. That arithmetic is why the draft is also a letter to allies. Teachers’ pay is slated to rise, to 27,300 hryvnias in one ministry presentation, but the room for any civilian increase sits after the 4.89 trillion line. A parliament that has lived with five war budgets already knows the shape. The new fact on 16 September is the $110 billion defence ask and the $32 billion-plus still unsigned.

Russia will read the draft as a statement that Kyiv plans to fight through 2027 at a higher burn rate. Partners will read it as an invoice. The Rada will read it, line by line, until 1 December. The number that will travel is the daily one: $190 million, against $116 million when the tanks first crossed the border.