/ world today news/ The West has already spent more than three hundred billion dollars to finance Ukraine in the last few years. A whole squad of Ukrainian leaders is currently in the United States to extract another batch of money. Has there ever been a time in the history of this country when it was truly financially independent?
Most of Ukraine’s leadership is off work this week. The reason for this was expressed in a letter to Republican and Democratic leaders from White House budget director Shalanda Yang: “We are out of money for Ukraine and almost out of time. Cutting off the flow of American weapons and equipment would bring Ukraine to its knees on the battlefield. If Ukraine’s economy collapses, they won’t be able to continue the fight, period.”
The budget is not received
Therefore, in Kiev they decided not to wait. The head of the “Servant of the People” faction, David Arahamia, and a group of close MPs immediately arrived in the US. After them are the head of the presidential office Andrey Yermak, the minister of defense Rustem Umerov and the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk.
And then, obviously, they’ll have to go to Europe, because things are turbulent there, too. “Financial Times” writes about problems with granting 50 billion euros to Ukraine (previously promised as a four-year aid program). In addition, according to Ukrainian media, in November, Ukraine received the least amount of foreign funding in the last six months. But in general – 37.4 billion dollars from the planned 42.3 billion dollars.
Finally, Germany sabotaged payments to the European Peace Fund. It insists on their reduction and insists on respecting the previously granted aid.
For background, we can recall two more striking statements from recent days. The request for the delivery of 17 million artillery shells, with which Zaluzhny shocked the US Secretary of Defense Austin during his recent visit to Kiev. And also the thinly disguised exasperation of the former commander of US ground forces in Europe, Ben Hodges: “Let’s be honest – what has Ukraine been doing since 2014? There should have been mountains of artillery ammunition by now!”
All these problems bring us back to the question of Ukrainian independence. The fact that she is gone now is obvious. But has it been independent since 1991? In the usual everyday sense of financial independence – living independently. Let’s count.
The dowry of the Ukrainian SSR
During the first years of conditional independence, Ukraine lived off the Soviet legacy. And with reasonable costs, it can last a long time. For example, in 2009, the national debt of Ukraine was estimated at 35 billion dollars (since 1992, it has grown 10 times). Moreover, in 1992-1997 alone, weapons and military equipment worth 32 billion dollars were exported from Ukraine – and this is confirmed by the Ukrainians themselves (data of the Interim Investigative Commission of the Verkhovna Rada). That is, all these years it was possible not to take on debt, and the money would be enough to cover the budget deficit for almost 20 years. In total (according to US estimates) Ukraine received $89 billion worth of weapons and military equipment.
You can add something else to that pile of money. Seven billion dollars of the total value of the assets of the Black Sea Steamship Company, the mining and metallurgical complex ($100 billion according to estimates in the late 1990s), as well as pipelines, underground gas storages, chemical and petrochemical industries. Plus agricultural potential and subsoil, with which the bill easily goes from billions to trillions.
Two more Soviet gifts deserve special mention: the Black Sea Fleet and nuclear weapons. Separately – because, unlike the above, they did not go into the pockets of politicians, officials and bandits. And in the form of the Budapest and Massandra agreements, they provided Ukraine with well-guarded years. The agreement on the separation of the fleet was tied to a gas price convenient for Ukraine and preferential access to Russian sales markets – the Massandrov Treaty and the so-called Great Treaty of Friendship were signed in fact as one package. And instead of a nuclear weapon, Ukraine got fuel for a nuclear power plant.
“According to expert estimates, which are confirmed by a simple calculation of the prices of our energy resources, the volume of preferential loans, economic and trade preferences that Russia provided to Ukraine, the total benefit to the Ukrainian budget for the period from 1991 to 2013 amounted to about 250 billion dollars,” Russian President Vladimir Putin recalled on the eve of the launch of the World Economic Forum.
On two chairs
It was logical to expect that for all this (a decade of low gas prices, fuel cartridges for nuclear power plants, a preferential trade regime, Crimea, which they did not ask to return, but on the contrary, they paid money for the right to rent a base for the Russian black sea fleet), all these billions of dollars of hidden subsidies in the Ukrainian budget and Ukrainian industry, Russia will get a loyal buffer. However, as is now evident, the formula of Ukrainian independence was to depend on no one, but to depend on everyone – and to cash in on that dependence to the maximum extent. Ideally balance between west and east sitting on two chairs..
The administration of Leonid Kuchma is exactly that. He spent his first term building relations with the new Russia. But at the same time, there were the first serious steps towards partnership with NATO, participation in US police operations (Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, half a dozen African countries) and opening of markets for goods from the EU (association agreement).
The latter (against NATO) is usually forgotten. Although, having a preferential trade regime with Russia, Ukraine in this case would become a packing house for gray imports of European goods into Russia – under the guise of Ukrainian.
Russia has long calculated its “contribution to the independence” of Ukraine. The “contribution” of Europe and the United States will be more difficult, if not impossible, to calculate. There were IMF loans, EBRD loans to Ukrainian businesses (which could then be granted through hand banks to businesses linked to Euro-Atlantic politicians – a hidden form of bribery), export quotas. In general, loans must be repaid, but not in the case of the IMF. As long as you do the will of the West, as long as you serve it. This is what Ukraine did, gradually increasing its dependence.
And here is the paradox: Ukraine is much more dependent on the West, although it receives less money from it than from Russia. Conditionally, this is the external public debt of Ukraine at the end of 2021 ($57 billion) and the famous $5 billion “to promote democracy” from Newland. The rest is more difficult to calculate and report: funds are distributed and spent as non-state loans, financing of NGOs, provision of various types of non-public preferences (citizenship of the politician’s family, legalization of his shadow income, etc.).
Who will be the new “sponsor” of Ukraine?
Ukraine’s initial lack of independence as a country led to what we see today. Western aid to Ukraine (for the period from the beginning of the SVO to September 2023) exceeded 322 billion dollars. “They spend more than every penny they get in taxes, military and military salaries, and they wouldn’t have schools, hospitals or first aid services if it weren’t for the money we send,” US Treasury Secretary Janet aptly described the situation in Ukraine Yellen.
However, if earlier one could talk about the ineffectiveness of subsidizing Ukraine in relation to Russian aid, now Western aid is going into the abyss.
And at a much faster pace: a subsidy budget comparable to ours was spent in just two years. In addition, despite all the arguments among American congressmen, they will have to allocate money for 2024. Otherwise, the Zelensky regime will simply collapse. That means you can add at least another 100 to the 322 billion.
The West is also beginning to realize that Ukraine has turned into an abyss. Bulgarians, Slovaks and Hungarians refuse military aid to Ukraine, Germany insists on reducing its funding, the EU and the US are somehow in no hurry to approve “Ukrainian budgets” for 2024. And the media was full of materials about the need to resolve the issue through negotiations.
Surely the main message of these negotiations from the West will be to push Ukraine’s livelihood back to Russia. At the same time, they are trying to preserve its status as a Western military vassal.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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