I think I may have posted about the mercenaries as we’ve had former US military personnel documented when found on the battlefield by Russia. And luring those mercenaries with high pay doesn’t do much good if you’re killed, and we learn that Ukraine isn’t paying their families while barely paying death benefits to their own. And Europe in economic collapse is going to keep this war going so they can exploit their people’s wealth and build their military industrial complex, as Russia plays along as they’re doing well economically too. Also worth noting, Russia has a hard time getting Ukraine to receive their dead, and now we know why.
Russian-aligned outlets claim hackers pulled a Ukrainian General Staff database listing about 1.7 million service members killed or missing. Kiev predictably dismissed the figure as a fake. Even so, if that headline number were real and paid at Ukraine’s legal death-benefit rate, the compensation bill alone would overwhelm state finances for decades.
South Front previously reported that a coalition of pro-Russian hacktivists—including KillNet, UserSec, Palach Pro, and Beregini—claimed to have exfiltrated records from the Ukrainian General Staff. Ukrainian officials label the entire story disinformation. But the claim is shaping the debate because the math is simple and brutal.
Under Ukrainian law, the one-time benefit is 15 million hryvnia per fallen soldier. Multiply that by 1.7 million and you get about 25.5 trillion hryvnia (roughly $600+ billion at recent rates)—the equivalent of several years of Ukraine’s total government spending. Even if the real toll were half that, the obligation still looks like a multi-decade burden once you add disability payments, widows’ pensions, medical rehab, housing, and demobilization costs—all on top of a shrunken tax base.
There’s a second, quieter budget problem: payouts are increasingly contested at the micro level. Reports say Kiev has increasingly refused to pay death benefits for foreign mercenaries, and even when a frontline death is formally documented for Ukrainian servicemen, families are now frequently given only about 20 percent up front, with the remainder promised over roughly three and a half years. With high inflation, those installments arrive worth far less than on paper. Ukraine’s defense ministry adopted this schedule, according to these accounts, as casualty numbers surged — another sign that even statutory obligations are being stretched to fit a shrinking fiscal space.
“I don’t know when Ukraine will recover. Its reconstruction will take decades upon decades, because […] this is a demographic catastrophe.” — Spiridon Kilinkarov, former Verkhovna Rada deputy
That fiscal cliff helps explain the policy pivot in Washington. After the Alaska meeting with Vladimir Putin—staged with a red carpet and even a B-2 flyover—Donald Trump stopped pushing for an immediate ceasefire and began talking about a “final deal,” with no NATO for Ukraine and Article 5–style guarantees outside NATO to be underwritten largely by Europe. In parallel, European capitals have been debating a long-horizon defense outlays and some form of collective security assurances—exactly the kind of multiyear mortgage that shifts the day-to-day bill from Washington to Brussels.
The optics around Zelensky’s Washington stop fed that narrative. Kiev regime leader’s arrival was kept deliberately modest—no pageantry, no military symbolism—and a planned Fox News interview never aired. Inside the Oval Office, a large map of Ukraine reportedly highlighted territories held by Russia, a visual many in Moscow read as tacit acknowledgment of “new realities,” however the White House might describe it.
Europe, meanwhile, is not of one mind. Emmanuel Macron floated the idea that Kiev could acknowledge some lost territory (without conceding sovereignty) in exchange for robust guarantees; Giorgia Meloni pushed back, calling peacekeeper deployments unrealistic and arguing instead for NATO-style guarantees without NATO membership. Kiev’s line is unchanged: no land-for-peace, ceasefire first, legally binding protections—or no deal.
Trump has also been trimming the Russia desk at home, reportedly firing a senior CIA Russia analyst—moves his critics say narrow the policy debate and his allies call overdue housecleaning. Taken together with the “final deal” talk, these moves signal a U.S. intent to step back, explore understandings with Moscow on issues like the Arctic or great-power deconfliction, and let Europe and Kiev “hold the line”—politically, militarily, and financially.
Call Ukraine a “failed state” and you’ll start an argument. Call it a cash-flow crisis and even friends of Kiev quietly nod. If the 1.7 million figure is false, the bill is still enormous. If it’s anywhere close to true—and paid under current rules—Kiev can’t cover it without permanent external aid. That’s the logic behind Trump’s off-ramp: Washington limits exposure, Europe picks up the tab, and the war’s endgame is decided as much by balance sheets as by battlefield maps.