Abstract: The article shows that as a result of the decrease in business activity, the loss of many people’s jobs and means of livelihood, the beginning of a full-scale war on the territory of the country, and the need for active actions on the part of authorities and management at various levels regarding the defense of the country, maintaining an acceptable standard of living and ensuring the necessary minimum support of the population, colossal losses of the revenue part of the budget, all this has a significant impact on the size and structure of state borrowing.

The work examined the essence of the state debt based on the research of various domestic scientists. It is proposed to consider this concept from two points of view: economic and material. The paper structured the classification of the state debt according to certain classification features and considered the state debt management system. The dynamics of the state debt of Ukraine from 2011 to the 1st quarter of 2022 shows a growth of 651 % for the entire period. The main years with a significant increase in the state debt are 2014 — 188.4 %, 2015 — 122.8 % and 2022 — 115 %. In the work, considerable attention is paid to revealing the structure of the state debt of Ukraine for the analyzed period. The authors analyzed the main social components of state borrowing, identified the main sources of financing the state debt of Ukraine and the main reasons for its growth. It has been studied that under the current management system, the state debt may reach 92.3 % of the country’s GDP by 2027. A significant reduction in the country’s GDP, an increase in the state budget deficit necessitates new borrowing and makes it impossible to fully repay and service the state and state-guaranteed debt in the future. It was emphasized and substantiated that to improve the situation with the state debt, first of all, an effective post-war management strategy is necessary, and the best option may be the restructuring of Ukraine’s debt.