The base salary of military personnel has not changed since 2018, remaining in the range of 8,000 to 10,000 hryvnias for a soldier in their second year of service.
On October 28, a meeting of the Public Council under the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine was held. The discussion covered the issues of monetary allowances for military personnel and pension provisions for those retired from military service. The problem of specialized secondary education was also discussed. The issues brought to the agenda of the Public Council meeting are relevant, sensitive, and long-standing. The debates were emotional and sharp. The proposals voiced during the discussion are being summarized by the military department.
During the meeting, the Chairman of the All-Ukrainian public organization “Officers’ Union of Ukraine”, retired Colonel Oleksandr Sasko, delivered a speech. The PromPolitInform portal presents the key points of his report.
On the status of monetary allowances
Oleksandr Sasko described the situation as consistently convoluted. In his view, Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 704 of August 30, 2017, remains compromised due to the illegal and non-binding Resolution No. 103 of February 21, 2018. The Cabinet of Ministers has still not complied with court rulings.
The base amount of monetary allowance has not changed since 2018 (within 8,000-10,000 UAH for a soldier in their second year of service).
Lawsuits regarding unpaid parts of monetary allowances are frequent, and the legal profession is benefiting from this.
“Resolutions No. 168 of February 28, 2022, and No. 768 of June 12, 2026, are motivational in nature and partially resolve problematic issues regarding allowances. The experimental project, along with the experimental contract, turned out to be a false start and was perceived skeptically by the military community,” the head of the OUU believes.
However, there is no gradual alignment of monetary allowances with the cost of living. Unlike prosecutors, judges, and civil servants, whose salaries are tied to the living wage or minimum wage through tariff grids, the official salaries and rank-based allowances for military personnel and other Defence Force staff have not changed since 2018.
Media and social networks are overflowing with unreliable and distorted information. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine announced a decision to increase monetary allowances for police officers to at least 10 living wages for able-bodied persons as of January 1 of the calendar year, but has not devised a way to implement this. The turn for military personnel has not yet come.
Former Minister of Defence of Ukraine Mr. Fedorov announced that he had removed 28 billion UAH from protected budget items — salaries — at the end of the year to make a “breakthrough” in the drone war, while the current Minister faces problems with financing salaries and allowances and is making desperate efforts to find financial resources.
Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 768 of June 12, 2026, concerns the implementation of an experimental project to introduce additional motivational factors for certain categories of military personnel and special police…
The Chairman of the Officers’ Union of Ukraine, Oleksandr Sasko, proposes:
1. To summarize the intermediate results of the experimental project to introduce additional motivational factors and, based on them, adjust further administrative steps.
2. To convincingly draw the attention of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine once again to the mandatory and overdue need to comply with court decisions regarding bringing Resolutions No. 704 and No. 45 (on the recalculation of previously granted pensions) in line with the version effective as of January 1, 2018.
3. The Public Council draws the attention of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine to the inadmissibility of manual regulation of protected budget items — monetary allowances and wages — and the manipulation of budget allocations.
On pension provisions
The last 8 years have created new disparities in pension sizes, the Chairman of the OUU emphasizes. The assignment and calculation of pensions occur taking into account all components of monetary allowances (excluding bonuses), and pensions were recalculated from three main sources.
Lawsuits are ongoing; in the first half of 2026, 81,500 lawsuits against the Pension Fund of Ukraine were pending in courts, with 32,333 satisfied for a total amount of 223.6 million UAH. As of January 1, 2026, 592,140 lawsuits were satisfied for an amount of 4,961,767,000 UAH. No one knows where the 100 billion UAH debt from court rulings came from, and the origin and structure of this figure remain unknown.
An extensive information campaign is underway against pensions in general and military ones in particular. The latest issue disturbing the pensioner community is the claim that there are 129,000 young and healthy military pensioners who are “living large” and do not want to fight. This is an unsubstantiated and provocative figure. Manipulations and blatant lies, unverified info, and legislative maneuvers are being imposed on society.
The pensioner community is focused on overcoming the consequences — fighting against Cabinet of Ministers resolutions 1778, 821, and 1046. Now, four unconstitutional articles and final provisions have appeared in the draft Law on the State Budget for 2027. Note that with a number of budget proposals, the Government is exceeding its constitutional powers, and with some, it is proposing to violate the Constitution of Ukraine.
Relevant conclusions and comments were made by the Main Scientific and Expert Department of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, committees on legal policy and budget issues, and the Ombudsman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. They expressed concerns about the unconstitutionality of the proposed pension restrictions. Our relevant committee remained silent…
“It is principled and significant that the registered draft laws also provide for the refusal of pension recalculation and a transition to their indexation. (But indexation is also proposed to be suspended in 2027.) This is the position of the Ministry of Social Policy, which is being actively promoted to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. These are harmful positions that contradict both legislation and common sense. But they exist,” Sasko notes.
As far as it is known, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the SBU, and other law enforcement agencies are not enthusiastic about these novelties, but no one asks them. Besides, a Law of Ukraine “On State Pension Insurance” is being developed to replace the Law “On Pension Provisions”. The Cabinet was obliged to introduce it by July 1 of the current year, the Ministry of Social Policy is carrying it around, but likely cannot bring it to a state of readiness.
However, the main point from intelligence information (because the development of this draft law is a top-secret matter — “burn before reading”) is that the state is refusing to provide pension support for those retired from military service and is shifting its financing to the Pension Fund of Ukraine. All military personnel are to be insured persons; the pension consists of a base, a solidarity part, and a professional pension, and is paid from the Pension Fund budget.
Along with that, the professional pension is provided by the insurer’s contributions to the individual account of the military personnel. This objectively entails an increase in the burden on the budget of military units due to increased contributions.
The draft law is overloaded with formulas and references. There is work to be done, or better yet, this latest “reform” should be prevented.
The fight for the implementation of court decisions continues, but the point is that the pension system needs to be returned to current legislation so that mass lawsuits do not occur. This is fundamental.
Financial component.
There is no money. Planned State Budget revenues amount to 5.65 trillion UAH, of which 2.43 trillion is a special fund. Expenditures are 7.27 trillion UAH. Of these, 3.8 trillion is for the Ministry of Defence. The deficit is 1.7 trillion UAH.
Allocations for Pension Fund pensions are 293 billion UAH (in 2026, it was 251.3 billion). In 2026, the Pension Fund budget provides 500 million UAH for debt repayment under court rulings.
Social component. A soldier in the ranks, and especially in a trench, is indifferent to the structure of their monetary allowance. Sobriety comes when their pension is assigned and calculated. Here, expectations are not met. Secondly, new disparities in pension amounts. Thirdly, such a state of pension provision, endless courts, and their unfair implementation provoke mass social discontent on the one hand and divide society on the basis of criticism of sky-high “pensions”.
Political component.
The first and main one is the prolonged division of pensioners into those who retired earlier and those who are now. There are ongoing accusations against the current authorities regarding this state of pension provision. However, pension “reforming” has been ongoing since 2000 — under Prime Ministers Yushchenko, Azarov, Hroisman and Social Policy Ministers Papiyev, Tihipko, Reva, Zholnovych, Lazebna… We know them all by name.
Oleksandr Sasko asks the question: what to do? And he answers: “Recommend the Ministry of Defence not to support the proposed innovations in the pension system until the war ends; conduct objective research into real pension payments; recommend the Cabinet of Ministers to finally cancel Resolution 103 and bring the procedure for recalculating previously granted pensions in line with legislation; urgently submit proposals to the Cabinet of Ministers to abandon the introduction of norms provided for by Articles 40-43 and point 3 of the final provisions of the Draft Law on the State Budget for 2027.”
We remind you that such proposals regarding monetary allowances for military personnel and pension provisions for those retired from service were expressed by the Chairman of the All-Ukrainian public organization “Officers’ Union of Ukraine”, retired Colonel Oleksandr Sasko, during a meeting of the Public Council under the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.
Illustrative photo: U.S. Secretary of Defense / CC BY 2.0
