Ukrainian arms manufacturers have not been paid for their equipment under the eBals system for months
Ukrainian arms manufacturers have supplied military equipment to the armed forces under the e-Bal system, but have been waiting months for payment. The debt owed to individual companies ranges from 24 million to hundreds of millions of hryvnias. This was reported by Ihor Fedirko, executive director of the Ukrainian Arms Manufacturers Council.
According to Fedirko, the problem of delayed payments affects all deliveries made through the e-Bal system.
For the largest companies in the defense sector, a payment delay of one to two million dollars is a difficult but manageable cash flow gap. At the same time, for small businesses, these funds were necessary to pay employee salaries, purchase components, and produce subsequent batches of military equipment.
Due to prolonged non-payment, some manufacturers are already facing delays in paying their staff.
Currently, the funding must be approved by the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence. Within the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the Department for Capability Development and Defense Technologies (DRDOT) is responsible for this area.
The problem arose after Parliament passed Law No. 4908-IX and amendments to the State Budget Law took effect.
However, the distribution of military personal income tax has not changed: 60% of the revenue goes to the Ministry of Defense, 30% to the State Special Communications Service, and 10% is allocated to military units.
At the same time, the law introduced a new requirement: the allocation of funds belonging to the Ministry of Defense and the State Special Communications Service must be approved by the Verkhovna Rada’s Defense Committee.
As Fedirko noted, the law does not set clear deadlines by which the committee must provide such approval. As a result, the document—intended to increase funding for the security and defense sector by 1.56 trillion hryvnias—has effectively created an additional bureaucratic barrier to timely payments to manufacturers.
In light of this situation, Ihor Fedirko has appealed to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the State Defense and Security Council, and the relevant parliamentary committee.
He is asking for clarification on when the relevant documents were submitted for review and within what timeframe Ukrainian manufacturers will be able to receive payment for military equipment already delivered.
This was reported by Ihor Fedirko, executive director of the Ukrainian Council of Arms Manufacturers.
Earlier, former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced the inclusion of new categories in the “Army of Drones” bonus system—a bonus that allows units to convert combat successes into new weapons. From now on, points will be awarded for verified hits from sniper systems, as well as for effective operations by small-scale air defense units, including mobile fire groups and army aviation.
As of 2026, more than 181,000 pieces of equipment—including drones, ground-based robotic systems, and electronic warfare systems—have already been ordered and delivered to Ukrainian units under the “eBaly” program.
