Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko announced on Friday that Ukraine had to spend 245.1 billion Ukrainian hryvnia (equivalent to $ 8.3 billion) on its war with Russia instead of development.
Marchenko said in a statement carried by the Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform, that this amount, which was not announced by the Ukrainian government before, reveals the economic turmoil that Ukraine is going through.
He added that we had to buy and repair weapons and provide emergency support to the internally displaced with this amount taken from some of the funds allocated in the budget for development.
Marchenko also noted that Kyiv is in dire need of increased foreign support, as it is forced to pump more billions of dollars into emergency spending.
He added that Ukraine received nearly $2 billion in external funding last April, $719 million of which came from grants.