Ukrainian army loses thousands of officers and contract soldiers in a few months

During the first six months of 2018, as many as 11,000 officers and contract soldiers have left the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Ukrainian Minister of Defense Stepan Poltorak wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Vladimir Groisman.

According to Poltorak, about 18,000 officers and contract soldiers are expected to leave the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces before the end of the year because of low wages.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry decided to raise the pay service for the military from October 1, 2018. The ministry requests the government increases the funding from the budget by 4.5 billion hryvnia (more than 10.5 billion rubles).

In early 2016, a Ukrainian military man would be paid a monthly salary of 7,000 hryvnia (about $260). At that time, the amount was about five times the minimum wage and almost 1.6 of average wages in Ukraine. The increase in social standards in January 1, 2017 worsened the financial situation of servicemen, which led to the outflow of servicemen from the army.