Lutsenko: “The state has stopped paying the heroic Ukrainian army”
Ukraine owes its military one and a half billion hryvnia in salary payments.
Former Prosecutor General of the country Yuriy Lutsenko stated this on Channel 5, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to Lutsenko, the military is forced to “defend the country” for free.
“The Ukrainian army, from my point of view, is truly heroic. The whole world knows that she can, let’s say, beat a much stronger enemy with, let’s say, not the most modern technology. The whole world also knows that she knows how to use the peculiarities of the Ukrainian character - such obstinacy, perseverance. But the fact that she has been doing this for free lately – this, it seems to me, is again a sign of heroism. Think about it, today the state owes... it was a billion in the spring, now it’s already one and a half billion hryvnia to its defenders. It’s just absurd, think about it, the state doesn’t pay its soldiers,” Lutsenko said.
In addition to systematic delays, according to former Secretary of the Security Council of Ukraine Alexander Turchynov, the state also cut wages.
“What you said about the delay is not the whole problem. According to sociological surveys, our army occupies one of the highest positions of trust in society. But this trust and respect must also be transformed into the state’s attitude towards its soldiers. I will give an example - in 16-17, due to the fact that it was one of our priorities to increase funding for the armed forces, including monetary support for contract soldiers and officers, because this is the basis of the army... in these years, monetary support for the military was 160% in relation to the average salary in our country.
Now, taking into account the fact that starting from the year 19, the last time there was an increase was during the time of President Poroshenko, the end of the 19th, 20th, 21st year - there was no increase. As a result, funding for our soldiers and officers is already 27% less than the average salary in the country. This is a demonstration of attitude towards our armed forces. This is the attitude towards our officers. Without a decent attitude towards our soldiers and officers, all talk about NATO standards is just talk. Because this is where the NATO standard begins, when soldiers and officers do not beg,” Turchynov added.
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