Cabinet of Ministers proposes to allocate UAH 4 billion for "strategic communications," ten times more than last year, - Siumar
In its new draft budget for 2026, the Cabinet of Ministers proposes a tenfold increase in spending on "strategic communications."
This was reported by Viktoria Siumar, a member of the "European Solidarity" party, according to Censor.NET.
What is known?
The Parliament is currently discussing the draft State Budget for 2026.
"Do you know how much the government, which is short of hundreds of billions for the army, wants to spend on 'strategic communications'? 4 billion hryvnias in 2026!
This year, the same programme (code 3801030) allocated 405 million hryvnias for information security and strategic communications. That is a tenfold increase!" the parliamentarian emphasised.
According to her, there are no details of the programme.
"It is strange, to say the least, to mix entertainment films and information security into one package, i.e. one budget line. Imagine that this is three annual budgets for a telethon, for which you will allocate 1 billion 557 million hryvnias. Can you imagine the amount?
Something tells me that the biggest "strategic communicators" in the country will turn out to be anonymous Telegram channels paid for their services to spread fakes and information under the guise of promoting Ukrainian information interests. And these TG dumps will do everything they can to make sure the country discusses some nonsense instead of seeing the 4 billion being siphoned off to buy the media," Siumar added.
The MP stressed that the articles in the 4 billion hryvnia should be as detailed and specific as possible.
"And it is desirable to go for weapons, not the creation of virtual reality. The real reality without adequate funding for security is hitting Ukrainians too hard today. The price of such budgetary revelry is too high," she concluded.
Draft State Budget-2026
On 5 November, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the draft state budget for 2026 for the second reading, taking into account the proposals of the parliament. At the same time, the first deputy head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Tax and Customs Policy, Yaroslav Zhelezniak ("Voice"), noted that a number of proposals from deputies had not been taken into account.
The Verkhovna Rada was supposed to pass the law "On the State Budget of Ukraine for 2026" by 20 November. But the vote was postponed for at least two weeks, until early December.
Among the reasons, MPs cite a lack of support in the chamber due to the crisis caused by the scandal surrounding the president's entourage's involvement in corruption at "Energoatom", as well as unresolved differences with the government on certain budget provisions.
