A Ukrainian official has said that an EU plan to provide Kyiv with up to 3 billion euros ($3.2 billion) per year for military aid amounts to “almost nothing” in the context of the war.
EU ambassadors agreed to use profits generated by frozen Russian Central Bank assets to purchase up to $3.2 billion worth of weapons for Ukraine annually, but Ukrainian Justice Minister Denys Maliuska told POLITICO last Thursday that Ukraine needs “hundreds” of billions.
“If we are talking about the needs of Ukraine and the needs of the war, military and non-military, 3 billion euros is actually almost nothing— we need hundreds of billions in order to win the war,” Maliuska said. “It’s a good first step.”
Using the profits from Russian assets to arm Ukraine would mark a significant escalation in the West’s economic campaign against Moscow. The EU, the US, and allied countries have about $300 billion in Russian Central Bank funds, and Maliuska said Ukraine wants all of it.
“The Ukrainian government really would like to get full confiscation [of Russian assets] and really believe this is lawful and this is the only approach which will be decisive in terms of the resolution of the war [with Russia],” he said.’
The US is in favor of stealing the Russian assets for Ukraine, but other G7 nations are hesitant to do so, and the bulk of the funds are held in Europe. Western banks have warned against the EU plan only to use the profits, saying it would open them up to legal action and could lead to other countries losing confidence in the Western financial system.
How do they expect him to line his pockets with that paltry amount ?
Europe’s junkie says what?
The scam continues. Meanwhile, the reason Russia has been able to liberate 12 Ukrainian villages in the last few weeks is because the money the West sent Ukraine to build front-line defenses was also “liberated” by corrupt Ukrainians who would rather enrich their offshore bank accounts than supply soldiers dying at the front. US tax dollars at work.
Even without considering corruption, the Ukraine does need hundreds of billions of dollars annually to pay its bills and to fight the war. But why does it think that the EU, the USA, or anyone else is going to provide that amount of money, every year, for the foreseeable future?
Did the Ukrainian officials not anticipate this problem? Did they think that they, with Western help, were actually going to defeat Russia in a year or two, and that the war would be over by now? Why would they think that? Or did they think they would lose quickly? But, if so, why did they start the war in the first place?
It’s a corrupt society. Just look at the string of oligarchs who preceded – and followed – 2014. They all raped the society and encouraged graft – every one of them.
Sometimes simpler is better.