Material by the Agency for Legislative Initiatives for ‘LB.ua’
On 10 June, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted Draft Law No. 6506-1, which provides for changes to police remuneration. It is currently awaiting the President of Ukraine’s signature. A wave of public discontent followed, with claims that ‘police officers received a pay rise, but military personnel did not’. The headlines are striking, but only partly reflect the substance of the adopted changes. The draft law establishes a guaranteed minimum remuneration threshold rather than increasing the base salaries of all police officers. This distinction has largely been overlooked.
What, then, is the full picture of police remuneration under the adopted draft law?
What does the draft law provide for?
The draft law on increasing payments to police officers had been ‘stuck’ in Parliament since January 2022. It was adopted at first reading only in March 2025 and then underwent almost a year of revision. The first version of the draft law did indeed concern the base salary, from which all additional payments, including allowances and bonuses, are calculated. However, the approach had changed by the second reading.
The adopted version concerns total remuneration rather than only the base salary, or the ‘bare’ rate. In other words, it establishes a minimum threshold below which a police officer’s total remuneration may not fall. Police remuneration comprises the base salary, a special-rank supplement, a length-of-service allowance, an allowance for access to state secrets, an academic degree supplement and bonuses.
In other words, the media conflated the initial version of the draft law with the final version that Parliament adopted. The former would indeed have almost doubled the remuneration that police officers take home. The adopted version, however, only establishes a minimum threshold that will not affect most police officers.
Under the adopted changes, total remuneration must amount to at least ten subsistence minimums, currently UAH 33,280. The changes provided for in draft law No. 6506-1 will enter into force on 1 January 2027, when the projected subsistence minimum is UAH 3,482. The guaranteed minimum salary for a police officer will therefore be UAH 34,820.
Who will the changes actually affect?
Different categories of police officers already receive payments close to or above this level. According to Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko, the average remuneration of a police officer at the beginning of 2026 was UAH 34,000–36,000.
Patrol officers, investigators, inquiry officers and psychologists working in the National Police receive UAH 25,000–30,000 or more once additional payments are included. In the Patrol Police, for example, the average salary is approximately UAH 20,000, with a further UAH 10,000 paid under an order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MoIA) for the duration of martial law. These funds are not paid during sick leave or annual leave, however, and therefore do not constitute a regular allowance. This is why the MoIA presented the draft law primarily as a means of regularising payments so that they would no longer depend on martial law, rather than as an increase in remuneration as such.
The current level of actual payments does not therefore mean that it is guaranteed to remain in place after martial law ends. The adopted draft law permanently establishes a minimum level of remuneration that does not depend on martial law.
Misreading the changes versus the broader problem
Ukraine currently has approximately 98,000 sworn police officers. The changes will not affect all of them. For example, some senior officers in the central administration with long service will be unaffected because they already receive more than the established minimum.
Assume that 50,000 police officers are paid less, including patrol officers, district police officers, juvenile prevention officers and others. Once the law enters into force, the additional burden on the budget would then be approximately UAH 5,000 per officer. This would cost the State Budget around UAH 250 million per year, or UAH 20.8 million per month.
If the same funds were distributed not to police officers but among serving military personnel, of whom there are approximately one million in the Armed Forces alone, each service member would receive only about UAH 208 more per month. Would that be fair? The question is rhetorical. The military must undoubtedly remain the priority, but an increase of around 5% would simply look insulting to society.
For Ukraine, now in the fifth year of a defensive war, military personnel’s remuneration, clear terms of service, appropriate accountability for military offences and mobilisation remain critically important, even if politically sensitive. Ukrainian military personnel do need higher remuneration and must be properly compensated for their service.
These measures should not, however, be set against establishing a minimum level of remuneration for the police, which maintain public security, combat ordinary crime and perform a range of other functions.
Shortly after draft law No. 6506-1 was adopted, the President announced an increase in military salaries, with personnel serving in rear areas to receive at least UAH 30,000. This confirms once again that increasing remuneration in the internal security sector, including the police and the State Emergency Service, and increasing military service pay are two separate and equally important tracks.
The discussion should remain focused on the relevant policy issues and take place in the context of higher taxes and levies, spending optimisation and the reallocation of expenditure. News headlines should also have been different: not ‘The Verkhovna Rada raised police salaries’, but ‘The Verkhovna Rada established a minimum salary threshold for the police’. This is the main substance of the adopted changes. Did someone deliberately manipulate Ukrainians, or did they simply read the initial version of the draft law rather than the adopted one? The question is rhetorical. This is reminiscent of the story of ‘mass labour migration’
