According to Johan Van Overtveldt, head of the budget committee of the European Parliament, the EU-approved aid to Ukraine of 50 billion euros until 2027 will not be able to cover all the country's needs amid the criminal war unleashed by Russia.
The EU should provide more aid to Ukraine
According to Overtveldt, Ukraine's non-military needs amount to about 3 billion euros monthly. Accordingly, during the year, the country needs financing for 36 billion euros.
However, the EU allocated 50 billion euros to Ukraine over the next three years.
On average, 12.5 billion euros per year will be available to Ukraine. According to the agreement between the EU and the USA, each of them will take over half of Ukraine's needs, i.e. 18 billion euros for the EU and the USA. Thus, the Ukraine Facility will fall short of at least 5.5 billion euros annually from EU obligations, the head of the budget committee of the European Parliament notes.
He emphasised that the funding shortfall will amount to 22 billion euros over the next three years.
Meanwhile, on the eve of his visit to the USA, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on Washington and European partners to increase support for Ukraine.
As the journalists of the RND publication note, according to Sholtz, the moment has come when the partners should allow Ukraine to defend itself fully.
Scholz added that this would be a powerful signal to Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin.
The signal is that he cannot expect our support to decrease, but rather that it will last long enough and be large enough, Scholz explained.
He noted that Ukraine defends itself with everything it has. However, for it to continue to do so, it needs support.
And what has been promised so far in Europe, which was also promised through the resolutions of the American Congress, is still not enough. So we have to find a way by which we can all do more together, said the German chancellor.
Western publications accuse the Republicans of disrupting the approval of aid to Ukraine
In The Economist editorial material, it is noted that the representatives of the Republican Party of the USA, under the pressure of ex-president Donald Trump, not only aided Ukraine but also gave up their political priorities to harm the President of the USA, Joe Biden.
The authors of the material reminded that it was the representatives of the Republican Party who proposed to link consideration of the issue of aid to Ukraine with the need to strengthen measures on the border with Mexico.
In this way, they tried to make the Democrats and the Biden administration more flexible on the issue of changes to immigration policy and the situation on the border with Mexico.
However, when the bipartisan bill proposed by the Republicans was ready, they refused to support it.
It's no secret why they did it: Donald Trump wants to win votes by stoking chaos at the border. He urged Republicans to scrap the deal proposed by the Senate because he prefers to keep the border as a hot campaign issue, the publication said.
The authors of the publication note that the most extensive harm is not that the issue of border policy remains unresolved but that the USA is betraying Ukraine, which was promised help.
Ukrainian soldiers cannot wait for some alternative funding idea to trickle through a congressional committee. They need ammunition now. If they don't get it, they may not be able to repel the Russian spring offensive, and they may lose more of their country, the newspaper's journalists warn.
But the negative effect of the actions of the Republicans is not exhausted by the tragic events in Ukraine.
The publication notes that the world is watching this drama: America's friends are nervous, and its enemies look forward to it.
If Uncle Sam cannot support a democratic ally defending itself against an unprovoked invasion by a tyrant who is also the West's most belligerent geopolitical enemy, what good are American security guarantees in the Baltics, Taiwan, or the Middle East? — ask journalists of the publication.
The authors of the article also added that the representatives of the Republican Party are now probably congratulating themselves for having framed their opponents from the Democratic Party and the administration of President Joe Biden in this way.
But if they set out from the beginning to harm America as a whole and help Vladimir Putin, according to The Economist, they could hardly have done it any better than they have already done.
