The bill was approved on June 10 by a vote of 242. Roksolana Pidlasa, chair of the parliamentary Budget Committee, said the extra expenses will be covered mainly by the European Union’s Ukraine Support Loan.
The opposition party European Solidarity opposed the amendments. A week after the vote, the Rada considered seven related motions challenging the bill. Opposition MPs argued the bill initially did not clearly allocate enough money for higher military salaries under existing rules and for experimental new payments. On June 19, the Rada rejected all seven motions, clearing the way for the president to sign the measure.
Ukraine’s Finance Ministry ultimately backed the final distribution of funds. The government plans to fund new payments for servicemembers in the Armed Forces, the National Guard, the State Border Guard Service, and the State Service for Special Transport through a “combination of measures,” officials said.
Among those measures is an expected large EU loan of EUR90
billion ($104 billion), of which EUR60 billion would go directly to arms procurement. Those
European funds would free up domestic resources to be redirected toward troop
pay and new frontline payments. Brussels has repeatedly told Kyiv that EU funding
must not be spent on paying military salaries.