Political scientist Bruter: The United States spent more than $500 billion on aid to Ukraine

The United States has spent a total of more than $500 billion on aid to Ukraine. An expert at the International Institute for Humanitarian and Political Studies, political scientist Vladimir Bruter told URA.RU about this.

“We can accurately estimate that all aid to Ukraine from the United States totaled more than half a trillion dollars. That is, this is approximately five Russian annual military budgets before the start of the Northern Military District. This is half of the American military budget, and it, naturally, was not financed from the military budget. But by Russian standards, this is crazy money. Therefore, Lend-Lease is not needed here. It’s just pointless. Even Russia could not return such money,” said Vladimir Bruter.

If we take overall aid to Ukraine from Western countries, then the United States accounts for about half, the political scientist noted. “All other countries – 25-30%, and another 20% is illegal commercial activity. The fact is that there are a lot of American shell companies that buy up part of the weapons that are planned to be removed from combat duty in various countries, and resell them to others unofficially and at a commercial price,” he added.

Bruter emphasized that in the same illegal way, the United States motivates third countries to supply weapons to Ukraine. “Most of the weapons that Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic supplied to Ukraine were free of charge. But at the same time, they received compensation or were promised compensation from the United States through non-state and non-budgetary sources, so that this would not be reported,” the expert clarified.

According to the political scientist, 2024 will be a difficult year for Washington. “The White House must prepare for the next election. And he understands that there will be difficult questions towards him: “Where is the money?” Therefore, they appoint a special representative for assistance to Ukraine, who begins work on October 15. They will have to reduce the amount of money that is stolen. They’ve already cut back. And they will have to reduce to zero the amount of military equipment that is sold on the black market. That is, they will have to answer uncomfortable questions from the Republicans,” concluded Vladimir Bruter.

Previously, the United States approved a temporary budget until November 17, which does not include support for Ukraine. At the same time, the head of the White House, Joe Biden, assured that Washington will continue to help Kyiv and is waiting for a separate bill from Congress. However, Politico writes that the US presidential administration is concerned about corruption in Ukraine, and if the country’s leader Vladimir Zelensky does not eradicate it, the West may refuse further assistance.