The Innovation Development Center, in collaboration with the public initiative "Golka," investigated how local authorities financed front-line needs last year without the "military" and "power" personal income tax, which was removed from communities at the end of 2023. According to the analysis, the Dnipropetrovsk region allocated the most funds for its own security and defense forces, followed by Odesa and Vinnytsia. Lviv region ranked sixth.
In total, last year, 262 surveyed communities allocated around 25 billion UAH from local budgets for community needs and defense forces. Of this amount, approximately 9 billion was for their own needs and community defense, while 15 billion was for defense forces overall. Therefore, the total sum across Ukraine is significantly higher.
The surveyed communities spent at least 0.01% of their annual budget on defense forces, with a maximum of 24.3%. The study deliberately did not provide figures for individual communities for security reasons, and the information was considered by regions.
Based on the data provided by the communities, the Dnipropetrovsk region provided the most assistance to defense forces in the three quarters of 2024, with nearly 786 million UAH coming from local budgets. Odesa ranks second with expenditures reaching 586 million UAH. Vinnytsia is in third place with 501 million UAH. Lviv region allocated 256 million UAH for its own security and defense forces, placing it sixth.
However, the data collected over the three quarters of last year did not investigate how much was spent on emergency services, support for military families, etc. Only funds for assistance to defense forces were calculated. Therefore, the actual amounts of assistance are likely higher.
If we analyze the sums that communities returned from their local budgets as subventions to support defense forces to the state budget for further distribution, Kyiv leads the ranking. According to the city's plans, over 4.4 billion UAH was supposed to be transferred from the capital's budget to the state budget last year. Odesa comes in second with 682 million UAH, followed by Lviv region with 527 million UAH.