EU’s Michel tells Trump ‘get the facts straight’ on Ukraine funding

[C.Martel]

The EU and its members have committed some €144 billion in military and financial aid to Ukraine, but have allocated for delivery only about €77 billion of that, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute, which compiles national contributions to Kyiv’s war effort. The U.S. has committed about €68 billion in total aid and has allocated for delivery about €66 billion, according to the Kiel data.

https://www.politico.eu/article/char...myr-zelenskyy/

[C.Martel]

More than one-third of the $60.84 billion spending outlined includes $23.2 billion dedicated to replenishing weapons and ammunition systems for the U.S. military.

https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-bil...ohnson-1891719

I totaled my car today. I am surprised I survived. The good news is I am going to do double accounting as Washington does with Ukraine aid.

I contacted my insurance and they assured me I get ~$35,000 for the totaling of my car. And I get ~$35.000 to buy a new car. Fantastic!

My house burned down last night, the only thing surviving was my internet and internet gadgets, the insurance company gave me ~$500,000 for my house burning down. And gave me another ~$500,000 to rebuild my home. Super. I like when I do Washington Ukraine aid accounting.

For those that are clueless. Washington in previous aid packages sent US weapons, many of which were soon to be retired, and accounted for the full price of the value of the equipment as Ukraine aid. So you say Washington only once accounted for sending the aid to Ukraine? No, Washington is saying buying replacements to the often older equipment counts as Ukraine aid too. Twice for the same (loss) equipment sent.

Once for the loss of the equipment in aid to Ukraine, and accounting a second instance in replacements.

My boat that sank with my precious metals in a boating accident sank again this morning. I was able to recover the boat back then, except my PMs could not be found they are at the bottom of the lake with everybody else's PM that sank due to a boating accident. Though I saved the boat. And it sank again with my crypto wallet filled with alt coins. Too bad. Happily I called my insurance company. The boat was worth ~1.5 million dollars, it was an older yacht. The insurance company gave me 1.5 million dollars for the loss of the boat and another 1.5 million dollar to purchase a new boat.

This is how Washington provides Ukraine aid. Aid to Ukraine - 100 million in artillery shells to Ukraine. And "aid to Ukraine", 100 million to the USA to purchase 100 million in shells for American stockpiles for war with China. Double accounting listed as aid to Ukraine.

If you find this interesting, you should see the "Israel aid bill". Money for Palestinians. "Those Jews, hiding as Palestinians. Since Israel aid only goes to Israelis". Which is proven false. Further proving that 60.84 billion for Ukraine is a load of malarkey.

[C.Martel]

It is fair to say that more than a third of these funds ($23.2 billion) will actually remain in the United States, as they will be spent on replenishing the US weapons and supplies that have been transferred to Ukraine.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/04/...t-it-contains/

Nearly $35 billion is apportioned for replenishing U.S. military stocks and funding on-going European deployments.

https://english.nv.ua/nation/u-s-hou...-50411808.html

The package largely mirrors the foreign aid proposal passed by the Senate in February, although it designates $10bn of the Ukraine funding as a repayable loan to appease some Republican members.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...bn-aid-ukraine

Ongoing European deployments = Another $15 billion will be used for "military training and intelligence sharing." To date, Ukraine has conducted dozens of training exercises with NATO to enhance its defense capabilities and modernize its military forces.

https://kyivindependent.com/speaker-...plies-run-out/

[C.Martel]

Too little too late by design and planned by the cia Anglo-American globalists that started the war using puppet Putin to invent fake reasons for war, more fake than Iraq War excuses:


West’s Aid to Ukraine: Too Little, Too Late?

By Alexandra Brzozowski | Euractiv
Apr 21, 2024

Ukraine and its European allies breathed a sigh of relief when the US House of Representatives approved the long-delayed $60 billion in military aid to Kyiv in a rare show of bipartisan unity. But the euphoria could be short-lived amid the struggle to provide substantial support in time.

The proposed bill is set to allocate $60.8 billion to Ukraine, with $23.2 billion earmarked for restocking weaponry (for the US military) and supplies sourced from the US, $13.8 billion foreseen for advanced weapons systems and $10 billion in economic aid.

The legislation, if approved by the US Senate as widely expected, could be signed into law by US President Biden as soon as Tuesday next week.

“Thank you, America!” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, adding the ‘vital’ US aid bill “will keep the war from expanding, save thousands and thousands of lives, and help both of our nations to become stronger.”

“This sends a clear message to the Kremlin: Those who believe in freedom and the UN charter will continue to support Ukraine and its people,” said European Council President Charles Michel.

“Ukraine is using the weapons provided by NATO allies to destroy Russian combat capabilities. This makes us all safer, in Europe and North America,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, welcoming the US military aid package.

But the euphoric response on this side of the Atlantic won’t be able to disperse thoughts that the West is doing ‘too little too late’ to prepare Ukraine, for what is most likely coming as Russia is expected to go in a fierce offensive in the coming months, if not weeks.

Military officials acknowledge in private that considering Ukraine’s currently dire battlefield situation and the creeping advances Russia’s forces have made over recent months, the new aid might not be able to radically change Kyiv’s prospects.

It can at best help Ukraine counter Russia’s continuous assaults and maintain control of territory, they believe.

Some experts also believe Russia could now be pushed to carry out attacks, it might otherwise have waited to launch before more Western aid reaches Ukraine’s battlefields.

But severe ammunition and air defence shortages, coupled with an increasing lack of manpower, will require more resources and time to overcome.

“The decision of the US Congress to finally pass its Ukraine support bill comes late, very late – but not too late,” Steven Everts, director at the EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), told Euractiv.

“Now EU member states need to do their part by delivering the air defence systems that Ukraine so badly needs – these systems do exist in Europe,” Everts said.

“Russia is a threat as much as to Ukraine as us. So there should be no excuses – it’s decision time,” he added.

“Hope this vote encourages all allies to look through their warehouses and do more,” said Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas.

In an extraordinary NATO-Ukraine Council this Friday (19 April), called by Zelenskyy in response to Russia’s intensifying missile strikes on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, NATO countries confirmed they have more air defence systems that can be dispatched to Ukraine.

“NATO has mapped out existing capabilities across the lines and there are systems that can be made available to Ukraine,” said Stoltenberg, adding he would expect concrete announcements “in the near future.”

Although the preference would be largely more primarily Patriot systems, “there are other weapons that allies can provide, including SAMP/Ts [surface-to-air missiles],” Stoltenberg also said that “many allies who do not have available systems have pledged to provide financial support to purchase them for Ukraine.”

“Now is also the time to remember that the EU now has to increase our own production of armaments, ammunition and supplies to aid Ukraine on a long-term basis,” said Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billström.

EU foreign and defence ministers, meeting in a rare joint session in Luxembourg, are expected to yet again discuss further military aid to Kyiv.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov are expected to join the talks via video link.

“This won’t be an easy session,” one EU official, asked about the expectation for Monday’s talks, said.

“It might not be obvious to everyone – and some might simply not want to see the reality quite yet – but there is an increasing feeling, that we’ve been doing too little, too late,” they added.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/glo...ittle-too-late

Can the heroism of Traditional, racist, homophobic, right wing Ukrainians defend from Chabad Russia.

[C.Martel]

When the Chabad Jews in Russia destroy an American M1a1 Abrams tank or defeat a Patriot Missile System, this is the same as criminal friends playing Risk getting gleeful over winning on a board game. The deepstate is in on it together.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...yt/ar-AA1nmmBL

Al-cia-da was a former US project. Saddam was a former US ally. Russia is run by the Chabad. Typically the US and UK do not engage in a war where a real opponent is fighting them and can defeat them. The Anglo-Americans did this vs Germany and it dismembered the British Empire despite victory vs Germany. The US would much rather fight controlling both sides.

[C.Martel]

MAGA Republicans and their Fox News are unreliable for news and information. I have to go to the State Department's/Washington's Kyiv Post article to find some facts.

Kyiv Post is about gaining Ukrainian public opinion of America by supporting Ukrainian issues with a big American flag attached to the Kyiv Post media.

ANALYSIS: Trump Says Europe Is Freeloading on Ukraine, But the Actual Numbers Are Bigly Different

Trump told Time America is picking up almost the entire tab to support Ukraine and cheapskate Europe won’t pay up. The reality is the US is pretty clearly in second place.

Former US President Donald Trump in a major interview with Time magazine charged – again – that Europe isn’t helping out as it should with financial support and arms to Ukraine it should, and that American taxpayers are being taken for a ride, but fact-checks by Time and more in-depth fact-checks by Kyiv Post show reality doesn’t mesh with his narrative.

According to Trump, he supports Ukraine and wants to prevent aggression in the Old World, but Europe isn’t paying anything close to its fair share on the Russo-Ukraine War and deterring the Kremlin. And American largesse and patience has its limits, he said.

“I want nothing bad to happen to Europe, I love Europe, I love the people of Europe, I have a great relationship with Europe. But they’ve taken advantage of us, both on NATO and on Ukraine. We’re in for billions of dollars more than they’re in in Ukraine. It shouldn’t be that way. It should be the opposite way,” Trump said in part. “Europe has to get there also and do their job. They’re not doing their job. Europe is not paying their fair share.”

Trump doubled down on the narrative that Europe is delinquent on security spending and that the US is being left holding the tab elsewhere in the interview: “Europe has to pay. We are in for so much more than the European nations. It’s very unfair to us. And I said if Europe isn’t going to pay, who are gravely more affected than we are. If Europe is not going to pay, why should we pay?

For a full transcript of the interview click here.

But a comparison of Trump’s claims of European stinginess and expansive American largesse to the actual numbers on foreign support to Ukraine by all states since Russia’s Feb. 2024 invasion doesn’t support that narrative.

Based on data published by individual states, Europe and not the US is Ukraine’s primary source of international assistance and has been so for months. European leadership in assistance to Ukraine is undeniable and widening, independent monitoring agencies report.

Thanks in part to a near four-month total halt to all US assistance to Ukraine, from January through late April, the gap between US support to Ukraine and European support to Ukraine is already distinct, and it’s in Europe’s favor, data compiled on state-to-state assistance by the Kiel Institute for World Economy (KIWE) shows.

According to findings published by that Germany-based independent research group, the value of international financial and military assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s Feb. 2022 invasion from European states to date has been worth some $95.2 billion. That number is money or materiel allocated, as opposed to promised, researchers said.

The United States, over the same period, has committed $71.8 billion to Ukraine in all forms of assistance, an April 24 report compiled by KIWE researchers found.

That finding directly contradicts Trump’s claim that US commitments to Ukraine are “billions more” than Europe’s.

A second Trump gripe about Europe, that clever Brussels politicians are taking advantage of American generosity and good nature, also seemed at least unsubstantiated, and possibly invented, when national burden-sharing is computed. By most estimates, the ballpark size of the EU economy is equivalent to $15.5 trillion annually, while the comparable figure for the US is substantially larger, around $25.4 trillion for FY 2024.

Based on overall contribution figures referenced to the size of economies, for every dollar’s worth of support the US sends to Ukraine EU states send $1.25. The average individual European citizen is coughing almost three times (Kyiv Post’s back-of-envelope calculation was 2.795 times) as much to tax collectors to help out Ukraine than their American counterpart.

Claims Europeans are not paying their fair share on Ukraine are even more difficult to substantiate if compared using the measure of GDP relative to the total population, i.e., GDP per capita. By that metric, Europeans such as in the Baltic states, Denmark, Poland, and Finland, are spending between one and two percent of their entire national GDP on Ukraine assistance.

US citizens, by that measure, are sharing a Ukraine assistance burden at least three times and as much as six times less than European citizens living in those countries, KIWE researchers found.

Kyiv Post reviews of previous KIEW reports, statements by individual states and aid updates published by Ukraine Finance Ministry found the KIEW April 24 estimates to be consistent with other officially published data. Kyiv Post first reported overall European assistance to Ukraine was edging out US assistance in total value, in January.

Kyiv Post was unable to determine whether Trump was either unaware of official, state-published data of actual international support both promised to and received by Ukraine, or he was aware of data and ignored it when commenting to Time. Kyiv Post asked President Trump’s office for comment but had not received a response to that request by the time this article was published.

An April 25 KIEW statement cautioned that future estimates of international assistance to Ukraine should be measured not in aid promised, but in actual allocations of money, and noted that in terms of pure military aid European and American assistance to Ukraine are almost exactly equivalent at around $42.5 billion since the start of the Russo-Ukraine War.

But were promises of future aid long-term to become real Ukrainian assistance, and receive allocated funding, the US-European wedge would widen and in the opposite direction Trump complained to Time magazine – currently the figures are the US, $3.53 billion, and Europe, $87.6 billion.

Trump’s remarks regarding Ukraine focused on money and the relative weight of purported fiscal commitments, and effectively ignored political decision-making – in particular a 3-month+ impasse in Congress on US aid to Ukraine, at times dragged out because Trump intervened in cross-party negotiations inside the House.

Also unmentioned by Trump was a pair of critical European victories on pushing cross-continent support to Ukraine in the early months of 2024, during the US stop to all assistance.

On Feb 1. the European Commission approved a €50 billion ($53.4 billion) financing program called the “Ukraine Facility.” The funding project committed Brussels and EU member state taxpayers to transfer money to Kyiv in grants or highly concessional loans, to pay government worker salaries including paychecks for Kyiv’s close to one million service personnel, pensions, and state services and infrastructure support.

By late March a Czech-led initiative had found political and financial backing in the form of individual state contributions worth at least $1.5 billion to locate on international markets and ship to Ukraine 800,000 critically needed artillery shells, in large part because American shell supplies had dried up at the end of 2023.

Liberal Time Magazine allows the lies of Trump go unchallenged. That is the Liberal MSM for you:

A little peculiarly, a Time magazine fact-check report on the Trump interview, published on April 30, did not challenge the former US President’s claim America is paying through the nose for Ukraine and Europe is doing close to nothing. Instead, the 4,000+ word Time review of Trump’s statements for accuracy did not mention the word “Ukraine” even once.