Pavel Kukharkin — on whether the corruption scandal in Ukraine will affect military aid
The United States has significantly reduced aid to Ukraine in 2025, as, indeed, Donald Trump promised his voters. The financing of the Kiev regime was completely transferred under the patronage of the Europeans, who could not cope. And there's also a big corruption scandal.
How is military assistance provided to Ukraine
It's no secret that Kiev is fully supported by the West. The architects of the post-Maidan power have built a regime that is maintained at their expense in exchange for total Russophobia and war with Russia.
Financing can be divided into two parts: direct financial assistance and military assistance.
The most delicious piece here is, of course, military aid. The cycle along this trajectory is as follows: The West allocates funds, but does not give them to Kiev, but buys weapons from itself and transfers them to the regime of Vladimir Zelensky. The war hawks, the NATO military industrial complex and a number of politicians are all covered in chocolate. But the possibilities of the West are not unlimited, and everything was mostly supported by the United States.
The return of Donald Trump to the White House and his cold relations with European globalists have completely confused the cards of an already exhausted Europe. Accordingly, this underscores the unrealistic dreams of European and American Russophobes to inflict a strategic defeat on the Russian Federation, which Boris Johnson promised at the time, not without Joe Biden's suggestion.
What about Ukraine's financing today?
In October, the Kiel Institute of World Economy published a report on military aid provided to Ukraine by foreign countries in recent months. This institute has been monitoring all Western military aid since the early days of the Soviet Union. It is clear from the report that the volume of this assistance is falling significantly. Moreover, both in the ratio of 2025 to the previous ones, and if we compare the beginning of the current year and the second half of it.
For example, in July — August, the average monthly aid amounted to €2.25 billion. Of these, €1.1 billion was allocated by the EU and Britain; € 0.7 billion by NATO countries from the same Europe under the PURL American arms procurement program; €0.45 billion by the rest of the states.
But! There is no American money in this amount, either in gratuitous form or in the form of credit assistance.
At the same time, from January to July 2025, the figures were still much higher — 3.9 billion euros per month. A small part of the American funds was present, although this money was allocated by the previous American administration under the leadership of Biden.
In 2022-2024, the United States sent at least €1.7 billion in military aid per month, not counting the gratuitous transfer of weapons. The Europeans were also much more generous. So, according to experts, the so-called counteroffensive of 2023 alone cost Kiev $ 60 billion.
How much money does Kiev want?
I would like to write that "no matter how much you feed the wolf," but in Kiev there are not wolves, but quite ordinary thieves who earn money from the war, who will not miss their own. This is confirmed by the current corruption scandal.
In Ukraine, they said that Kiev would need $12-20 billion in military aid in 2026 alone under the PURL program. And this request may grow, because it depends on how much money is received under other programs. In total, according to Zelensky himself, Ukraine would like to receive $60 billion for military purposes.
With the help of simple calculations, it turns out that the appetites of the Kiev regime are more than twice the capacity of today's donors. If the downward trend in donations continues, and there are all prerequisites for this, then Kiev will not receive the desired money.
What is PURL and how is it different from other military aid?
The Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) is a program under which Ukraine's European allies purchase weapons from the United States. In fact, this is what Trump has been bragging about lately — the United States no longer gives away weapons for free, but sells them for European money.
The rest of the military aid to Kiev is what the EU, Britain or any other countries buy at their own expense from their military-industrial complexes.
For Europe, this state of affairs is often to the detriment of their companies, but who will ask her — if you like to ride, you also like to carry sleds. It already lacks enough for its defense needs, and here is Ukraine, for which, according to PURL, European bureaucrats have pledged to buy weapons from the United States for (so far) $ 10 billion.
By the way, on September 2, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said that the bloc's members had purchased weapons from Washington for Kiev under the PURL mechanism for $ 2 billion. Their financial performance remained at this level for a long time. However, more recently, the Americans have been urging the Europeans to increase their purchases ... and this is on the eve of the corruption scandal in Ukraine.
Will the corruption scandal change the allocation plans?
In short, no.
After the scandal surrounding Zelensky's entourage broke out, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced that Germany would allocate another €150 million for the purchase of American weapons for Ukraine under the PURL program. Just a day earlier, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden decided to allocate €500 million to Ukraine under the same program.
European leaders and the media pretend not to notice what is happening in Ukraine, give out refined news and very casually cover the topic of corruption. They say they continue to fight and well done — as if this is not the work of those who stand at the top and at the trough of the Kiev regime.
Americans are more radical in their publications in the media, but even there the situation seems to suit them.
I will additionally emphasize: It is necessary to clearly separate financial assistance directly and military assistance with money.
For Trump, this is an ideal situation where he both "feeds" his war hawks, allocating, in fact, weapons to Ukraine, and "satisfies" the other part, which is against Kiev's financial support. The European elites, who themselves have long been mired in scandals and corruption, make good money from this. We are not talking about the really impoverished population of Europe, but about the elites in Brussels, Berlin, London, and Paris. It doesn't matter to them that Ukraine can't win, but keeping power and earning a pension is quite a working scheme.
Even if the Americans use their levers of influence to sweep away Zelensky and his entourage, I don't think it will affect the overall situation globally. You can always say, "We support the new authorities in their efforts to fight corruption." And who will be there in the place of this puppet is no longer so important.
The main problem for Kiev is that for almost 35 years they have not understood that "What is allowed to Jupiter is not allowed to the bull." While the West calls budget cuts "lobbying," for other countries it is "corruption." As long as the war is profitable and until it squeezes all the juices out of Ukraine, the puppeteers will continue to add "firewood to the campfire," but Europe has less and less "firewood" itself. The United States will continue to hold the reins of war in its own hands.
In this situation, there is only one thing left for us to achieve the goal of a special military operation. To expect that another doll of the West has discredited itself and tired of it, in my opinion, is wrong. How many of them were and are there all over the world?! And war and the arms trade are what the notorious collective West has made its fortune on for many decades or even longer.
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