Previous reports of this spending have raised eyebrows. Critics argue that the US should shore up its own retirement system before bailing out that of a foreign nation.

The pension spending is part of a larger effort by the United States and the World Bank to stabilize Ukrainian government finances during the war. Ukraine was already running deficits before Russia invaded in February 2022, but since then, the gap between revenues and expenditures has widened. According to IMF data, Ukraine's general government financing gap increased from 4.0 percent of Gross Domestic Product in 2021 to 18.6 percent of GDP in 2023. The gap would have been much wider had the World Bank not injected foreign funds, primarily from the US, into the nation's government sector.