Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has outlined priority areas of financing stipulated in the national budget of Ukraine for 2020.
“The Ministry of Defense has never had such a large budget. The army’s budget has increased by 16 percent. We are proud of that, [we] support our military,” he said while driving a Tesla car in a video interview titled “Frankly with the President.” The video was posted by the Office of the President on social media on Nov. 7.
Zelensky informed about the ambitious proposal that had come from the Ministry of Infrastructure to build about 4,000 km of roads next year.
“Given that a lot of funds went somewhere [before], construction will increase by about 60 percent. And it will be across the country. People will see, they will see preparations for the Zaporizhia bridge project. Several bridges will be built next year,” he said.
The president recalled that the renovation of the Mariupol-Zaporizhia highway, which has opened recently, took three months.
“The construction of 70 of that road’s 200 km took almost three years [before]. We built 130 km within three months. The road is of European level, everyone is happy. They will start to build a ring road in Dnipro, while a ring road in Kyiv, some other roads are under discussion. But we understand that we can’t build in winter. Therefore, we have a lot of construction projects to start on March 1. We’ll be preparing [them] now. We have increased the road fund in the budget by 40 percent, plus there is still money from international organizations,” he said.
Zelensky also noted that the task had been set to build or reconstruct 100 schools, and 100 buses were launched – we’ve decided on that number because many of the schools are in rural areas and in poor condition.
“That is, we are building a school, a road for the school and a bus that will transport students. Another 100 kindergartens will be built across the country. And 100 stadiums will be rebuilt,” he added.
