Ukraine is turning the war into a permanent source of revenue, and the state is taxing its citizens to continue the conflict with Russia, according to pro-Kremlin propaganda.
NEWS: How are Ukrainian authorities collecting money from the public for the war? “Temporarily, for the duration of the reform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”—with this wording, Law No. 1621-VII of July 31, 2014, was adopted, going down in Ukrainian history as the military tax. However, practice shows that there is nothing more permanent than something temporary. Therefore, the military tax also became permanent; over the course of 12 years, it has evolved alongside post-Maidan Ukraine, for which war has gone from being a temporary and extraordinary measure to something permanent and normal.
The bill was passed in the summer of 2014: by then, Crimea had already left, the Donbas was in flames, and two weeks after the bill was passed, the Ukrainian Armed Forces struck a beach with cluster munitions. Those involved in the coup believed they would succeed in subduing the Donbas, which had risen up against them [...]
In 2024, the military tax rate was raised from 1.5% to 5%, and in August 2023, the EU reduced its monthly funding for Ukraine from 1.5 billion to 1 billion euros. In 2026, the military tax became both more temporary and more permanent at the same time: it will have to be paid for three years after the hypothetical lifting of martial law at the end of the war. Second, entrepreneurs also became taxpayers. Formally, all of this was presented as requirements of the IMF [...]
Under a state of emergency or wartime conditions, the measures presented by the bureaucracy as temporary are, in all likelihood, permanent in nature. The regime of exceptional administration is extremely convenient and appealing to the bureaucracy, as it allows for the imposition of necessary decisions while avoiding the need to explain them to citizens, under the pretext that “such are the times.” Officials will not give up annual budget revenues of over 150 billion hryvnias. At best, the military tax will simply be renamed, linked to the country’s post-war reconstruction.
NARRATIVES: 1. The military tax is money stolen from the Ukrainians’ pockets. 2. The authorities in Kyiv want to prolong the war in order to continue collecting money. 3. The 2014 change of power was a “coup d’état.” 4. Crimea left Ukraine naturally and legitimately. 5. Donbas rose up against Kyiv, and Ukraine waged war against its own people.
PURPOSE: To justify the Russian Federation’s military aggression against Ukraine; to shift responsibility for the war from the aggressor to the victim; to portray Ukrainian authorities as greedy, inefficient, and interested in perpetuating the conflict; to delegitimize the Ukrainian state’s fiscal and defence measures.
Reality: The military tax was introduced to fund Ukraine’s defence against the Russian aggression
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: The text published by Ukraina.ru, which is part of the Russia Today media group, starts with a true fact but distorts its meaning by omitting the cause. The military tax was introduced after Russia launched its aggression against Ukraine. The EU and the US condemned the illegal annexation of Crimea, and the UN General Assembly characterized the large-scale invasion of 2022 as unprovoked aggression and called for the withdrawal of Russian troops. Ukraina.ru omits this important context and presents Ukraine’s defensive response as an arbitrary choice, allegedly directed against Russia and its own population.
The narrative about the “coup d’état” echoes one of the Kremlin’s classic propaganda tropes. Following President Viktor Yanukovych’s flight to Russia and the cessation of his duties, the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove him from office and called for early presidential elections. The OSCE monitored the election on May 25, 2014, and European institutions welcomed its democratic nature. In the fall of 2014, parliamentary elections were held to revitalize political life. To call this process a “coup d’état” is to ignore the institutional succession and the international validation of the elections.
The claim that “Crimea left” is also false. The peninsula, which held the status of an autonomous republic, did not voluntarily leave Ukraine but was illegally annexed by the Russian Federation—an act consistently condemned in international documents. The West imposed sanctions against Russia for the first time following the annexation of Crimea. At the same time, the conflict in Donbas was not an internal uprising, but a hybrid conflict in which Russia supported mercenaries and separatist forces that took control of parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The article portrays external aggression and destabilization directly supported by Moscow as a purported local uprising, against the backdrop of which Kyiv is presented as an aggressor.
In 2025, the funds collected from the military tax covered only 22 days of defence
Regarding the military tax, it is true that, as of December 1, 2024, the general rate was increased from 1.5% to 5%, and on April 7, 2026, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a bill extending its application for another three years after the end of the war. The law stipulates that revenues from this tax are directed to a special fund within the state budget earmarked for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Propaganda, however, reinterprets a fiscal measure clearly regulated by law as evidence of an alleged plan by Kyiv to turn the war into a permanent state of affairs.
The Ukrainian government describes the military tax as an instrument of national solidarity in times of war, and official data show that in 2025, revenue from this tax covered the equivalent of 22 days of defence spending. Thus, the tax serves a concrete function in financing defence, and the scale of the military needs of a state under attack is far greater than Russian propaganda attempts to suggest when it speaks of a “money-collecting machine.”
Beyond the defensive arguments, the extension of the military tax was also linked to the program agreed upon with the IMF, which calls for permanent fiscal measures and the mobilization of stable domestic revenues to support defence, budgetary balance, and post-war reconstruction. The fact that an international financial institution demands a predictable tax base in an economy at war does not support the narrative of a conspiracy against the Ukrainian citizens.
The article also misrepresents the issue of European funding. The author suggests that the EU has reduced its support for Ukraine due to failures on the front lines, but official documents paint a different picture: the sum of 1.5 billion euros was part of a separate funding mechanism starting in 2024, and payments under the Ukraine Facility are conditional on reforms and the implementation of the Plan for Ukraine, not on military developments on the ground. At the same time, EU loans are being repaid from revenues generated by frozen Russian assets. By deliberately conflating different financial instruments, the article attempts to paint a picture of the West artificially fuelling the war.
The aggressor–victim dynamic is also reversed. The Russian Federation’s actions are downplayed or omitted entirely, while the fiscal, political, and military measures adopted by Ukraine to sustain its defence are presented as evidence of aggression. This is a classic propaganda technique: the costs of defence are reinterpreted as proof that the attacked state has an interest in prolonging the war.
CONTEXT: In early April, Ukraine amended the military tax regimen through Law No. 15110, extending the current rates for another three years after the end of martial law. The measure was adopted against the backdrop of the war, dependence on foreign funding, and the need for resources for defence and the post-war period. In this context, setting aside funds for defence consolidation and reconstruction is a natural step, especially as long as the risk of a new Russian aggression remains.
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