Trends of Population Social Protection during Wartime

In war conditions, social policy acquires special importance, as it must provide support for internally displaced persons, veterans, families of the deceased, persons with disabilities and other socially vulnerable groups. The article aims to reveal the practical aspects of implementing social protection for the population in Ukraine and to provide proposals for areas of its improvement, taking into account current realities. The methodological basis of the study comprises a set of methods, including analysis and synthesis, structural-functional approaches, comparative and statistical analysis, the generalisation method, and graphic and tabular methods. The article reveals the features of implementing social protection for the population in modern conditions. An analysis of the dynamics and structure of expenditures in the State Budget of Ukraine for social security from 2020 to 2024 enabled the identification of a trend towards an increase in absolute amounts of funding, while simultaneously reducing their share in the state budget expenditures structure. This situation is a consequence of the reorientation of financial resources to the needs of national security and defence. However, the state considers fulfilling social obligations to the population as its priority. State support for internally displaced persons, social payments to low-income families, persons with disabilities, war veterans and families of the deceased together form the system-forming basis of social protection in conditions of a full-scale war. At the same time, institutional changes have occurred in the social protection sector, involving the transfer of functions related to administering a significant number of state social benefits and social scholarships to the Pension Fund of Ukraine. The researchers assessed the impact of this reform on the processes of granting and paying benefits, the availability of social services, the level of centralisation of management and digitalisation of the social sphere. The study’s results indicate that the concentration of social benefits administration in the Pension Fund of Ukraine contributes to increased transparency, reduced application processing times, expanded channels for citizens to apply, and the formation of a single information space for social assistance recipients, while mitigating potential organisational and financial risks. Ultimately, the article guides the enhancement of Ukraine's social protection system in light of current realities.