Defense budget of Ukraine for 2018 has been increased to $6.3 billion, as Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said in a Government session.
“A few days ago we were inspecting the needs of national security and defense. It is our consolidated view, that the defense expenses should be increased this year, so that they constitute 5% of the GDP, and the defense received not less than 3%. Here we see a substantial increase from $5.5 billion this year to $6.3 billion next year,” the Prime Minister said.
Ukrainian defense has been working on developing country's own military equipment, which is vital in the circumstance of Russian aggression. Thus, experts from Ukraine and Poland jointly developed a missile system Stokrotka, that combines air missiles of caliber 80 mm with a ground launcher equipped with Topaz modern fire control system. Before that, Ukroboronprom presented new light search and rescue aircraft Dolphin. For Ukraine's Independence Day, Ukraine’s armed forces presented about 70 modern combat vehicles at the exhibition in the downtown Kyiv.