Ukraine plans to spend 13% of GDP on defence in 2023

The Ukrainian government will spend 44% of its entire 2023 budget on defence and national security, Finance Minister Serhii Marchenko revealed on 13 September after the cabinet approved the draft budget.

More than UAH1.1 trillion ($30 billion) will be allocated to the domestic security and defence sectors; by way of comparison, only four NATO member states (the US, the UK, Germany and France) allocated more from their respective 2022 national budgets.

Figures from Statista show that Ukrainian defence spending was as low as 1.58% of GDP in 2013, the year before the Russian annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Donbas and Luhansk.

Since then, the proportion of defence budget to GDP increased steadily, reaching 4.13% in 2020 (the most recent year where figures are available).

The Ukrainian government expects GDP to increase in 2023 by as much as 15%, which would result in a total of $230 billion.

Therefore, a planned 2023 defence budget of $30 billion would translate into 13% of GDP, as Ukraine continues to try and evict Russian invaders from the country.