Ukraine's Defense Ministry names budget priorities for 2024

The Ministry of Defense named missile weapons and ammunition as priorities of the budget for 2024, reported the press service of the department.

According to Deputy Minister Yuriy Dzhyhyr, 175 billion hryvnias ($4.85 billion) will be spent on the purchase of missiles and ammunition in 2024, and about 80 billion hryvnias ($2.22 billion) will be spent on military equipment.

The next priority is the ongoing repair of damaged equipment and the purchase of spare parts.

"The government has set the task of contracting arms and military equipment from the Ukrainian manufacturer as much as possible. And, according to our estimates, more than 190 billion ($5.27 billion), which will be contracted next year, will remain with the domestic manufacturer," the official said.

At the beginning of 2023, a loud scandal arose around the Ministry of Defense, when it became clear that it purchased food for the military several times more expensive than in Kyiv stores.

The Ministry of Defense called these accusations manipulative, but almost immediately the government fired the deputy minister for rear support, and then the director of the procurement department of the Ministry of Defense also lost his position.

The Verkhovna Rada also obliged the Ministry of Defense to partially disclose information about its purchases – from the end of April, it has been publishing reports on tenders.

In August, a new scandal arose over the procurement of jackets for the Armed Forces. According to the preliminary results of the anti-corruption inspection at the Ministry of Defense, the jackets from Turkey for the Ukrainian military, which became the object of the journalists' investigation, were definitely winter jackets.