Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced Tuesday an additional $4.5 billion in direct budgetary aid for the Ukrainian government.
Yellen said that the new funds will bring total US budgetary aid for Ukraine to $13 billion, and more is coming as Ukraine expects the US to help pay for its massive budget deficit in 2023.
The aid is being disbursed by the US through the World Bank. According to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the funds will be sent to Ukraine in two tranches before the end of 2022.
The budgetary aid is meant to fund Ukrainian government services. USAID said that there will be “robust safeguards” and third-party monitoring to “ensure accountability and transparency in the use of these funds,” but it’s not clear how much real oversight there will be.
Before Russia’s February 24th invasion, the US and its Western allies would cite Ukraine’s corruption as a reason why the country couldn’t join NATO or the EU. But those concerns seemed to have waned as the West has shipped tens of billions of dollars to the government.
A group of House Republicans led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) introduced a bill last week to audit all US aid to Ukraine. The bill will likely get voted down by Democrats, but Greene said she would reintroduce the bill when Republicans have the majority in the House after the new Congress is sworn in this January.
The $4.5 billion is being pulled from funds that have already been authorized to spend on Ukraine. The White House is looking for Congress to approve a new Ukraine aid package worth $37.7 billion during the lame-duck period, which would bring total US spending on the war to about $105 billion. Included in the requested spending bill is $14.5 billion in direct budgetary aid.
How much money does the US spend on the poor?… If you want to rate, you need to declare war in your neighborhood…
Ka-Ching! American ATM here, open for business 24/7 for Ukrainian Nazi’s.
Complete madness prevails.
How will the Kleptocrats politicians in Washington ever launder those funds without their favorite conduit, FTX?
A lot of money laundering presumably goes on in Washington.
Here’s the actual evidence so far publicly presented that Ukrainian aid funds were laundered through FTX:
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
Except 100 million that FTX donated to the Democrats is all documented, potentially 100 million more is being looked at. Greyzone and a few other media outlets have detailed the conspiracy. Its called journalism.
Essentially the US Fed printed billions that got issued to Ukraine. Ukraine spent significant amounts of it on FTX coin. FTX then donated millions of this to the Democrats. Presumably 10% for the big guy.
When there was a run on FTX coin, FTX had a liquidity crisis as all the money had been siphoned off. 8 billion was missing. Nothing to see here right THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
FTX’s principals donated tens of millions of dollars to Democrats AND REPUBLICANS.
The Ukrainian regime didn’t “spend” anything on FTX or the FTX token, and none of it had any discernible connection to US regime aid, which was issued in dollars, not cryptocurrency. The role of FTX and Everstake was conversion of private cryptocurrency donations through the “Aid for Ukraine” web site into fiat currency.
Correct, with this clarification: Bankman-Fried did contribute tens of millions to Democrats and Republicans, but the breakdown is extremely lopsided according to FEC reports. The Dems got something like $40 million, making him the second-highest donor in the election cycle. Republicans got about $250K.
Agreed. Michael Tracey, one of my favorites, had the spreadsheet posted in Twitter. It was about $37 Million for Democrats compared to $240 thousand for Republicans. “The breakdown is extremely lopsided.” FACT CHECKED! It was easily fact checked by someone described by Thomas himself as “confused.” LOL. I probably deserved it at the time.
Apparently fact-checking isn’t your strong suit. The $240k for Republicans was from one of FTX’s two to execs, Sam Bankman-Fried. Another FTX exec, Ryan Salame, gave Republicans $23 million.
I never pretended to have a strong suit but should have noted your lumping the contributions to the organization as a whole–not one name that was prominently displayed. Well done, Thomas.
Thanks!
This isn’t an unusual phenomenon.
If one person makes fairly equal contributions across both “major” parties, it’s pretty obvious what is going on. That person is buying politicians, probably for the purpose of buying regulatory favor.
So what you’ll see is multiple people associated with an organization balancing each other out, each contributing to only one of the two “major” parties, so they can each pretend at least a LITTLE convincingly that it’s about values/ideology rather than just plain graft.
It seems to work, at least to some degree. Bankman-Fried really seems to have convinced a lot of people that he was just a woke snowflake lib throwing money at Democrats because he cared so very, very much about all the right things, those things being anything other than “make sure my company gets advantages.”
Bankman-Fried was not the only FTX executive making political contributions. Ryan Salame contributed about $23 million to Republicans.
Both were trying to buy a friendly regulatory environment, and obscured the contributions to both parties for that purpose by one of them supporting Democrats and the other supporting Republicans.
As for the “laundering aid to Ukraine” part, so far nobody’s been able to put any actual there there. The entire basis for the claim is that the people making it want it to be true.
Because the Democrats are kind of in charge. For now.
Is this “lend lease” or a pure gift?
It’s a gift. Of course the weapons, etc. that are being provided under the lend-lease program are really gifts also, since Ukraine is so unlikely to ever pay for them that the notion is basically fictional.
Red, you can bet your life that you and I will be funding rebuilding Ukraine as well.
Yup. š Well, rebuilding whatever remains of Ukraine after the West insists on prolonging this mess for . . . how much longer?
I hope the House will investigate the “circumstances'” that led to the overthrow of the Ukrainian President in 2014 which allowed the present situation. The intention by the Obama administration was to goad Russia into a military response by abusing Russian-speaking people in East Ukraine. This is what has to be investigated as an addendum to the investigation now on the Bidens. The Deep State will now become an issue again.
Well, the Republicans were in control of one or both houses of Congress from 2011 through the end of 2020, so don’t hold your breath.
No doubt there will be an investigation of Hunter Biden’s involvement with Burisma and perhaps Joe’s participation in firing and selecting Ukrainian officials, but both parties are, and always have been, supporters and participants in our global meddling and interference.
“both parties are, and always have been, supporters and participants in our global meddling and interference” – if the meddling and interference would be, as proclaimed, for the promotion of the democracy, it could be fine. I would agree with it and support it. But, as it is, they are promoting neo-Nazism in Europe and radical Wahhabism in Asia. In other words – they are investing a lot of money for the promotion of the evil.
I agree with the exception of “…for the promotion of the democracy…” I see where you were going with your argument and I agreed overall. But then it hit me, the idea that our corrupt politicians can promote democracy anywhere is absurd.
Promoting yes, but not by meddling and interfering. Maybe just by example.
The issue of the treatment of the ethnic Russian population in eastern Ukraine should be investigated as a potential war crime.
Bombing your own citizens into submission to a crooked government qualifies AFAIC.
Eerily similar to what the Zionazis are doing to the Palestiniansā¦.
Any investigation of this, and/or FTX, will turn into a partisan attack on democrats that will be very carefully constructed and presented to exclude any wrong doing by republicans, the US, the US military, or US intelligence.
Both democrats and republicans have a huge vested interest in keeping this purely political.
“A group of House Republicans led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) introduced a bill last week to audit all US aid to Ukraine.”
Marge wants oversight. Big deal.
Q. Should the U.S. provide military assistance to defend Ukraine from Russia?
Marge: Yes, the Russian invasion of the Ukraine threatens the balance of power in the region
Q. Should Ukraine join NATO?
Marge: Yes
I agree with you 100%. She probably feels the same way regarding Taiwan. That’s not helpful as you’re probably aware, I don’t know much. So even on the fact that she wants an audit, which you eloquently described as (no) big deal, I don’t feel the audit is going to accomplish anything. How much good did having an audit of Afghanistan’s war funding provide? Has anyone gone to jail for the huge amounts of money that had gone missing?
“I don’t know much.”
You know plenty my friend. I wish more knew as much.
Logical thinking using your brain helps a lot.
The Israelis are now burning in jealousy…!
They’re probably about to get a raise.
They’re probably calling Biden to see ’bout that right now.
Agreed. But it’ll probably be more of a demand than an inquiry.
lol
This is too juicy a political target for the Trumpies to leave alone.
Pathetically irresponsible.
Im sure all the homeless at home will appreciate where all that money is going to…
So bogus that these already authorized and appropriated funds are referred to by the Administration (State Dept and USAID) as “additional.” And bogus too that each time a portion of the already authorized and appropriated funds is dispersed there are multiple “announcements.” And also bogus that not only the MSM, but even antiwar.com, continues to treat these false “announcements” as if they were not only news, but front-page news. Congress decided to give the Ukraine this money months ago. That was news. “Announcing” each time a “new” or (“additional”) check is cut, out of that same money, is merely PR. Pro war PR that antiwar.com is amplifying, for no good reason.
Yup. And how many times has this been pointed out here, with no apparent effect?
$105 billion. But they couldn’t spend $5 billion on a border wall. (Even though they pay for border walls for Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and of course Israel. And both Hillary and Obama supported “some sort of border barrier” in the past, before that became forbidden. But I digress.)
I have read about the effects of Russia’s successful strikes on the power grid. And the fact is they could strike even more, but they will do that final push in conjunction with the winter offensive. The power shortages mean that Ukraine can’t function. They even mean, unfortunately, that Moldova is now without power, and there are massive protests there against the pro-Kiev government.
Kiev should sue for peace. All they had to do was promise to stop killing people in Donbass with artillery, and to not become an outpost for NATO. But some point out that Zelensky wouldn’t survive politically, because he has built such a massive pro-war establishment with no dissent allowed that they’d turn on him. In particular, apparently, he’d be afraid that the nationalists would make inroads against him.
Maybe time to leave for London or Miami and enjoy the bribe money in his bank accounts. I’m pretty sure he didn’t sell Ukraine’s public land to China and Blackrock just because he thought it was the best for the country.
Zelensky is probably afraid that the Banderists will flat out kill him. It’s a reasonable fear. They’ve told him they will and they’ve demonstrated that they are serious about such things. I think Miami would probably be a better choice. Much easier to surround yourself with heavily-armed security and I understand that there are excellent plastic surgeons.
You’re absolutely right. All the Kiev regime had to do, all the US-NATO masters had to permit them to do, was to take a few simple, reasonable and relatively painless steps. But the Ukrainian nationalists seethe with hatred and the US is relentless in its campaign to cripple and, someday, balkanize Russia.
“Budgetary Aid”!!!! Ukraine has caught up and passed Israel. No mean feat.
One hundred and five billion for an unwinnable war.
It simply boggles the mind.
How many schools could be built for that amount?
How many homeless shelters?
How much food distributed to families who cannot keep up with ByeDone-induced inflation?
Medicare for all, anyone?
Itās enough to make one weep when Americans who could benefit from this insane amount of dollars remain unaddressed.
And to top it off, in the world’s greatest democracy (just ask those who make these decisions!), we were never asked if it was ok to promote and then prosecute a war – in our name and at our expense.
Agree, Bear!
We the taxpayers should determine how OUR money is spent!