Veteran Sports program suspended due to limited funding
In October 2026, the new stage of the state program "Veteran Sports" will not start. All funds provided for this year have already been used, and there is currently no possibility to additionally fund the program from the state budget.
This was reported by the Ministry of Veterans Affairs of Ukraine.
In 2026, 600 million UAH were initially allocated for "Veteran Sports". The calculation was made for approximately 100 thousand recipients per quarter - that is, about 300 thousand uses of the program in the first three quarters.
The actual demand turned out to be significantly higher: in three quarters, the program was used over 800 thousand times. Because of this, during the year the state additionally allocated funds for it, and the total amount of payments exceeded 1.2 billion UAH - more than twice the initially planned volume.
The Ministry of Veterans noted that all available financial resources have already been allocated for payments, including funds that were returned for previous periods.
To conduct another stage in October, additional funding is needed, but currently it is impossible to allocate it from the state budget. Therefore, the acceptance of new applications in the "Diia" application will not open in October, and payments of 1500 UAH within the fourth quarter will not be made.
The "Veteran Sports" program provides for a quarterly payment of 1500 UAH to veterans for physical education and sports.
At the same time, the Ministry of Veterans plans to continue the program in 2027 and transfer it from an experimental format to a permanent basis. The final format and funding volume will depend on the capabilities of the state budget.
In the draft state budget for 2027, 20.5 billion UAH are provided for veteran policy in total - 3 billion UAH more than in 2026. However, the Ministry of Veterans did not specify separately how much of these funds can be allocated specifically for "Veteran Sports".
