Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko unveiled on Thursday that his country has spent $8.3 billion to fight the Russian invasion, according to Reuters. Marchenko described that the funds would have in normal times been used for domestic development, but has now gone toward procuring more weaponry and emergency repairs, as well as handling the refugee crisis of those millions of people displaced within Ukraine.
Also on Friday the Group of Seven foreign ministers will meet for talks in Germany. According to Bloomberg, where Ukraine's foreign minister is "pushing the group to take steps to allocate seized Russian assets to Kyiv to finance rebuilding."
But despite the collective Western enthusiasm for punishing Russia and unifying the world against Moscow, there remains a few significant hiccups...
For starters, Hungary and a handful of other smaller nations are holding up Europe's planned Russian oil embargo, to the point that it may be delayed indefinitely for the sake of implementing other key facets of the sanctions package, as Rabobank observes:
Although the EU has vowed to implement a phased-in oil ban, preferably in the context of a broader sanctions package aimed at Russia, there are now Member States -according to Bloomberg news- that consider "delaying a push to ban Russian oil so they can proceed with the rest of a proposed sanctions package if the bloc can't persuade Hungary to back the embargo."And on the Western military alliance front, Bloomberg has also aptly written that a "Turkish chill hits potential NATO expansion".
Turkey's Erdoğan is saying not so fast on the rush to admit Finland and Sweden into NATO, asserting that his country - which represents the second largest NATO military and hosts US nukes - is "not favorable" to the idea. "Sweden has become a home for PKK and other terror groups. We don't view their NATO membership positively," he said earlier in the day.
The move to see both countries, one which shares an over 800-mile border with Russia, enter NATO has intensified since April in direct response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On Thursday Finland's president Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin announced the country willapply for NATO membership "without delay" - explaining that "NATO membership would strengthen Finland's security. As a member of NATO, Finland would strengthen the entire defense alliance."
Reader Comments
Inquiring minds want to know............
So win or lose, the Ukraine people lose all around after being raped by the west and the banks.
As expected 50% of all monies will never even appear on the books ... and out of that $8.3 there's probably $5 billon that's gone on grift
1) Ukraine's excessive use of glysophate , number 2 in the world after the US, was scheduled to be banned after 12/2022 in the EU.
2) Ukrainian Parliament has not authorized mercenaries or weapons of war at any cost in Ukraine.
3) Zelenski's call for mercenaries to kill Ukrainians demonstrates failed rational thinking.
4) Zelenski's actions indicate planned massive debt to be controlled by the World Bank.
The debt is similar to what Czech has experienced after the EU promised each citizen would own their country's businesses. This is also the case in Poland, finally having their arm twisted to allow out of country corporations to own Polish land.
Rand Corporation - Extending Russia, Competing from Advantageous Ground - [Link]
Rand Corporation - Documents related to Ukraine - [Link]