In the five years since the inauguration of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine's public debt has increased by almost 74bn dollars. This was reported by RIA Novosti with reference to the data of the Ukrainian Finance Ministry.

Thus, by the middle of 2024, the state debt of Ukraine reached 152.2 billion dollars, which is 88.4% of the country's GDP.

"Zelensky became a record-breaker in building up the country's liabilities: during his time in power, they increased by $73.8 billion. This is only 4.6 billion dollars less than the state debt that Ukraine has accumulated since gaining independence in 1991, ’

For comparison, under Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine's state debt increased by 33.5bn dollars, and under Viktor Yushchenko - by 15.7bn dollars.

On 31 July, Zelenskyy signed a law suspending payments on Ukraine's foreign debt. Following this, the Standard & Poor's Rating Agency (S&P) downgrated the country's credit rating to ‘selective default’.