Changes in budget transparency of Ukraine under wartime conditions

Abstract

The transparency of public finances in Ukraine has become not only a governance issue but also a matter of institutional resilience under wartime conditions. In the author’s earlier study, it was shown that the full-scale invasion and the introduction of martial law led to the suspension of standard budgetary procedures, restrictions on the publication of key fiscal information, and a sharp deterioration in Ukraine’s Open Budget Index position in the 2023 round [1]. In Open Budget Survey (OBS) 2025, Ukraine’s transparency score returned to 65 points, public participation reached 41 points, and oversight rose to 85 points [2]. This means that the current stage of development should be analysed not as a simple continuation of pre-war practices, but as a process of restoring budget openness under severe institutional and security constraints.