Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Yulia Sviridenko has said in an interview with the Financial Times that Kiev intends to delay pensions, teachers’ and civil servants’ salaries if it does not receive Western aid.
The salaries of 1.4 million teachers and about 500,000 civil servants may be delayed, she said.
According to Sviridenko, in the absence of support from Western countries, Ukraine will prioritize defence and debt servicing.
She added that in this regard there is a huge risk of underfunding a number of social sectors.
Earlier, Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said that he did not know where to get money for the mobilisation of half a million people.
It will not be possible to artificially increase such expenses – there are simply no funds for this, he stressed.
The Russian ambassador to Vienna, Dmytro Lyubynskyy, said that the money that Austria allocated to Kiev allegedly for economic recovery was used to finance the AFU.