Proceedings of the International scientific and practical conference ―Modern Science and Education‖ (April 10-12, 2026) / Publisher website: www.naukainfo.com. – Paris, France, 2026. - 217 p.

17 Our analysis of the expenditures of the consolidated budget of Ukraine by functional classification is one of the important tools for assessing budget policy priorities. As we can see from the data in Table 2, the total budget expenditures are growing annually, but what is important here is what amount of budget funds was concentrated in a particular sector and how budget priorities changed? As can be seen from the data in Table 2, before the start of the large-scale russian invasion, the largest amount of expenditures in 2021 was for financing social protection and social security (19.92%), including social protection of pensioners (11.49%). In somewhat smaller volumes compared to social security, but stably (16.97%), such an important social sector as education was financed. Next in terms of the largest direction of budget expenditures is economic activity (15.91%). In 2021, expenditures in the amount of UAH 203,610.4 million or 11.04 percent were allocated to healthcare. In fact, we see those macro indicators that characterize the priorities of budget policy in the pre-war period. They are expressed in social expenditures and it is important to note here that this does not depend on the optimal needs of the sectors, but on the budget's ability to satisfy them. From this we can conclude that before the war, the government's main attention in implementing budget policy, as a component of financial policy, was focused on issues of social security, development of education, healthcare, as well as support for economic activity. That is, financing was carried out for sectors that determine the future of social development and the country as a whole. At the same time, the share of defense in the structure of expenditures of the consolidated budget for 2021 was only 6.91% or 127527.3 million UAH, which gives grounds to argue that the country was focused on the prospect of social development and to a lesser extent on strengthening its defense capabilities, that is, it was not preparing for hostilities.