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MOSCOW, March 18Vladimir Zelensky has made the Ukrainian economy completely dependent on Western assistance, and the residents of the country will have to pay for military expenses, wrote opposition Ukrainian politician, chairman of the board of the “Other Ukraine” movement Viktor Medvedchuk in an article published on the “Look” website.
“For the continuation of the war between Zelensky and the West against Russia, small businesses and ordinary citizens of the country will additionally pay from their own pockets. The remaining 6 million workers are already forced to provide for more than 10.5 million pensioners. And it will be even worse, because Ukraine under Zelensky is increasingly mired in loans and debts. Today it is easier to write it off as bankrupt, since the “allies” do not have money for restoration,” the article says.
According to him, Zelensky “has completely put the country’s economy on Western handouts,” and the life and future of Ukraine directly depends on the decisions and sentiments in the US House of Representatives. Medvedchuk noted that the volume of external revenues to the budget of Ukraine since the beginning of the year is more than six times lower than the established budgetary needs of Ukraine. In addition, due to the blockade by Polish farmers on the Ukrainian-Polish border, deductions from customs duties are lower than planned.
“In the conditions of budgetary collapse and economic international isolation, Zelensky is going to an unprecedented and primitive increase in tax rates and the introduction of new ones. At the instigation of Zelensky, the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine announced the mobilization of additional revenues from the state budget of Ukraine for 2024. We are talking about a set of measures to increase revenues from the military, excise duties and the introduction of monthly advance payments of income tax by enterprises operating in the retail trade of fuel,” Medvedchuk noted.
The head of the Verkhovna Rada Tax Committee, Daniil Getmantsev, said on March 8 that the government was preparing a “set of proposals” to increase revenues to the country’s state budget by 44 billion hryvnia ( more than $1.2 billion) by increasing taxes and fees for entrepreneurs and businesses. Previously, he noted that since the beginning of hostilities, the country's national debt has doubled, and in foreign currency equivalent — by 55%, or by $51.6 billion. He also noted that the Ukrainian state budget is critically dependent on external assistance from allies.
The Minister of Justice of Ukraine Denis Malyuska stated in early March that, according to the Ukrainian authorities, by 2025 they will not have enough funds to finance non-military needs.
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