Minister Marchenko on mobilization: Internal sources of funding for the army are exhausted

Minister of Finance Serhiy Marchenko said that discussions on new mobilization rules, provided for by draft law No. 10378, are ongoing. The department has questions about terms, plans and forecasts.

He told Forbes about this.

According to him, the internal potential of financing military needs has already been exhausted, so the Ministry of Finance is waiting for decisions from the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense on the optimization of expenditures.

At the same time, it will not be possible to artificially increase expenses, because there are none.

"If we need to find them, then we need to understand in time — we need to find them today or is it March-April-May, maybe the second half of the year. That is, I need a picture as a minister, then we can talk about meeting needs," noted Marchenko.

And he added that it may be necessary to look for opportunities for additional income — additional internal sources of financing, but it is too early to talk about numbers.

So far, the Ministry of Finance has not received information about what exactly needs to be provided. The needs of the Armed Forces are calculated by the Ministry of Defense, it determines possible sources of optimization of current needs, and then the defense and financial departments make decisions.

When Serhiy Marchenko was asked if it was true that the mobilization of 400 000 to 500 000 people would cost the state 500 billion hryvnias, as President Volodymyr Zelensky said, the minister replied: the calculations are "quite correct."

• The day before, the head of the Armed Forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi said that the military command did not ask for specific numbers of mobilized Ukrainians. Itʼs about the figure of 400 000-500 000 people, which was mentioned, in particular, by the president.
• In the evening of December 25, the government submitted draft laws No. 10378, No. 10379 to the parliament. The first document provides for changes to mobilization and military service, and the second — strengthening responsibility for military offenses. Read more about them here.
• On December 19, at a press conference dedicated to the results of the year, Volodymyr Zelensky said that the military command needs an additional mobilization of 400 000 to 500 000 people. The president said that he needed arguments for such a decision.