Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has not supported President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's idea to skip on an Independence Day military parade. Yesterday, Zelenskyy said that he was not planning to hold a "pompous and certainly not cheap" parade this year.
"We must hold a military on 24 August. This must be a parade of pride, courage and dignity of our Ukrainian people, our state," Groysman said at a cabinet meeting on 10 July.
He instructed Finance Minister Oksana Markarova and Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak to make a detailed estimate and find a way to hold the parade and pay the bonuses to servicemen as the president suggested.
"I have some thoughts on where to find the money for this and not at the expense of social payments. Thus, we will solve two issues: the first one is a good initiative to raise payments and the second one is to hold a parade. These suggestions will be handed over to the president and the president as the supreme commander in chief will have the final say," he said.
Last year Kyiv hosted a military parade called the "March of New Army" on Independence Day, featuring over 4,000 servicemen and around 250 items of military hardware.