Recently, the Government officially acknowledged the shortage of 400 billion UAH for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. To close this gap, amendments to the 2025 state budget were approved. We decided to help the Government and the Verkhovna Rada find additional money for the army and the Ukrainian defense industry. As it turned out, despite the government's promises to curb the financial appetites of state top managers during the war, individual departments and state-owned companies feel comfortable, regardless of the effectiveness of their work and the extremely difficult situation at the front. 

They tried, but they didn't want to be able to.

The authorities twice tried to legislatively regulate the salaries of officials during the war. In particular, an amendment was made to the draft law No. 8312 on measures under martial law, which set a limit on the monthly salaries of officials and employees of state-owned companies in the amount of 10 minimum salaries until the end of the war. The saved funds were supposed to go to additional payments to the military. However, the amendment caused a wave of criticism from people's deputies and some economic experts. They noted that such savings would cover only 2% of the entire required amount of payments to the military. As a result, during the second reading, the amendment was rejected and on April 10, 2023, the law was adopted without it.

The second attempt was bill No. 12316 of December 2024, which proposed limiting the salaries of officials and state managers to UAH 100,000 — at the level of payments to military personnel on the front lines. On December 17, 2024, the initiative was submitted for review, but its further fate remains unclear. Thus, both attempts to revise salaries in the state sector did not result in adopted laws. Instead, the salaries of state management — from officials to heads of state companies — continued to grow, and the authorities have not yet announced their possible revision.

How did the salaries of officials grow? 

According to the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, in January 2024, the TOP-20 average salaries in central government bodies fluctuated within the range of UAH 40.6-69 thousand, and in July they increased to UAH 57.4-103.7 thousand.

The biggest jump occurred in December — the range reached 90.4–134.6 thousand UAH. So, during January-December of last year, the indicated salaries increased by 112.5%. For example, according to the State Statistics Service, in 2024, the average salary in the economy increased by only 13.6% — from 18,903 UAH to 21,473 UAH.

In 2025, the growth trend of the TOP-20 average salaries in central government agencies was maintained. Thus, in January, average salaries in these institutions amounted to 51.8–76 thousand UAH, and in May – 60.7–114.1 thousand UAH. Over the five months of this year, the growth was 15.67%. If we compare January 2024 and January 2025, the increase was 22.9%.

The dynamics of average salaries in the Central Election Commission is interesting. In January 2024, this figure was UAH 55,000, in July it increased to UAH 70.5 thousand (+28%), and in November it reached UAH 97.2 thousand (+68%, TOP-3 among all departments).

In 2025, the average salary at the Central Election Commission increased from UAH 54.3 thousand in January to UAH 66.1 thousand in May (+21.7%). During 2024, a phenomenal growth in the average salary at the National Securities and Stock Market Commission was recorded – from UAH 29.6 thousand in January to UAH 109 thousand in December (+268%).

At the same time, the number of employees decreased from 283 to 249 people. In the first 5 months of 2025, the average salary in the department also increased: from 66.3 thousand UAH in January to 72.5 thousand in May.  

For comparison: according to the State Statistics Service, in 2024 the average salary of education workers increased by only 15.3% (from UAH 12,649 to UAH 14,593), and in medicine – by 11% (from UAH 15,163 to UAH 16,850). It seems that the salary policy of the current government quite clearly indicates its priorities.

How did the salaries of top officials increase?

Average salaries of state government executives showed even more pronounced growth in 2024-2025. In January last year, the TOP-20 average salaries of heads of central government agencies ranged from UAH 96.3 thousand to UAH 387.6 thousand, in December – from UAH 239.4 thousand to UAH 370.5 thousand. The average increase in this category of salaries for the year was 119.9%.

At the same time, in the first 5 months of 2025, the indicated TOP-20 grew by only 4%, however, compared to January 2024, the heads of the indicated departments began 2025 with an increase in average monetary remuneration by 28.6% (116.4-423.5 thousand UAH versus 96.3-387.6 thousand UAH).

The State Space Agency of Ukraine deserves special mention. The average salary of its management (2 people) in 2024 increased from 57.4 thousand to 274.7 thousand UAH (+378.5%).

The CEC joined the "leader": in May 2025, the average salary of management (18 people) was 211.7 thousand UAH – almost at the level of the same period in 2024 (209.9 thousand UAH).

At the same time, according to the Pension Fund, the average salary in the economy in May 2025 was 20.4 thousand UAH. Thus, the salary of the management of these departments, which are extremely important in war conditions, exceeded the average in the economy by more than 10 times. 

Salaries and bonuses in state-owned companies

The management of state-owned companies has been receiving considerable funds for the past year and a half. According to PrivatBank reports, individual board members earned over UAH 2 million per month in 2024, and in October their salaries were approaching UAH 3 million.

A "pleasant" surprise for taxpayers was the bonuses of bank board members for April 2025. The amounts reached 5 million and more, and in total about 23.4 million were spent on issuing bonuses. According to Drone Tech, this is equivalent to the cost of 1,560 FPV drones.

According to reports, there were no bonuses in Ukrgasbank in 2024, but in 2025 some exceeded UAH 4 million. In total, 28.6 million were spent on their payments, which is equal to the cost of 1,907 FPV drones. This year, the salaries of the management of this state-owned bank have also increased significantly. If in January they mostly amounted to UAH 700 thousand – UAH 1 million, then since March they have exceeded UAH 1 million.

For comparison: in 2024, the salaries of these respected top managers were within the range of UAH 500–900 thousand.

In Ukreximbank and Oschadbank, based on reports, they refrain from paying bonuses, and the salaries of most members of the management range mostly from 400 to 900 thousand UAH. In Ukreximbank, at the beginning of 2024, only two out of four managers received more than 1 million UAH. However, after the expansion of the board to seven people, only the salary of the chairman of the board remained at this level.

In 2025, the majority of bank board members' salaries were within the range of UAH 600–800 thousand.

As for Oschadbank, the above tables show how in 2024 the salaries of most management increased to UAH 800-990 thousand.

In 2025, almost all members of the bank's board will maintain this level of salaries.

It is worth mentioning Energoatom, Ukrnafta, State Enterprise Forests of Ukraine, and Ukrposhta separately. The management of these state-owned companies probably considers it the norm to hide the actual salaries of their managers, which are paid at the expense of Ukrainian taxpayers. Such information is either missing, incomplete, or outdated on their websites. 

What can you not say about Ukrenergo, which regularly reports on management salaries. In the first 5 months of 2024, average management salaries ranged from UAH 440,000 to UAH 499,000. Increased remuneration was observed in January — UAH 848,000, and also in April — UAH 2.1 million (+327% compared to March). In the second half of 2024 and in 2025, the salaries of the state-owned company's managers amounted to UAH 150,000 to UAH 520,000, excluding bonuses, additional payments, compensations and various other payments provided for by law.

Ukrhydroenergo also publishes reports on management remuneration, but does so in a non-detailed manner. In 2024, the total monthly salaries of five board members ranged from UAH 2.2 million to UAH 3.3 million. In December last year, the total remuneration of managers jumped to UAH 6.5 million. In 2025, it was stable at UAH 3 million to UAH 3.2 million for all of them for the first three months (a new manager was added in February). However, there was an increase in April and May, to UAH 4.1 million and UAH 6.2 million, respectively.