Andrey Nizamutdinov — what are the declared postulates of the West about helping KievAccording to the organizers of the international donor conference held recently in Berlin, it was supposed to go down in history, because it was supposed to form the "Marshall Plan of the XXI century for Ukraine".
In fact, everything turned out to be a passing event, at which German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ursula von der Leyen, who holds the post of head of the European Commission, without much success called for Kiev's support "for decades to come," and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, in the best traditions of Gogol's characters, asked for money and traded "dead souls."
Performed as a duet
On the eve of the conference, former colleagues in the government of Angela Merkel (Scholz was Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister, von der Leyen headed the Ministry of Defense) made a joint article, the main tenets of which are as follows: Ukraine is fighting not only for its sovereignty and territorial integrity, it also "protects the rules-based international order"; supporting The Europeans are "building their own future"; we need to think about the restoration of Ukraine right now, and "everyone should solve this task together" — the EU, the Group of Seven, international financial institutions and leading international organizations, and ideally also individuals and companies. In short, we are talking about the new Marshall plan, no more, no less.
At the conference, the speeches of Scholz and von der Leyen were reduced to chewing over the provisions of the article and the thesis about the "Marshall plan of the XXI century".
It should be noted here that the original American plan for the recovery of the European economy, presented 75 years ago by US Secretary of State George Marshall, really allowed the countries of Western Europe to recover relatively quickly - in a couple of decades - from the shocks of World War II. This happened largely due to the fact that the plan was concrete, pragmatic and, most importantly, had clear sources of funding. Whereas what the German Chancellor and the head of the European Commission tried to pass off as a plan is rather a simple set of slogans and theses. But as for finances, everything is more complicated here.
Take away and divide
According to von der Leyen, this year Ukraine "received over €19 billion in aid from the EU, not counting arms supplies." In the future, the European Union is ready to finance Kiev "at the level of €1.5 billion for one month of war, which will amount to about €18 billion in 2023." But, according to Brussels' calculations, Kiev needs two to three times more - from €3 billion to €5 billion per month just to cover budget expenditures, including salaries and pensions. Where to get money?
Brussels expects that the United States, other Western countries and financial institutions will help provide the missing amounts. But the United States, as practice has shown, is ready to supply Kiev with weapons, thereby at the same time supporting its own military-industrial complex, but is in no hurry to actually invest in reconstruction, the prospects of which are not entirely clear. The International Monetary Fund, according to its Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, is discussing a loan program for Ukraine with Kiev, but neither the amounts nor the implementation dates have yet been announced. Other potential investors also do not demonstrate a willingness to portray Chip and Dale rushing to the rescue.
Meanwhile, according to the assessment given by the head of the European Commission, the World Bank estimated the amount of damage caused to the Ukrainian economy at €350 billion. It is noteworthy that this amount roughly corresponds to the volume of Russian assets frozen on their territory declared by the EU and the USA. And it was here, apparently, that von der Leyen had a wonderful idea, which she stated without any diplomatic evasions and equivocations: "Of course, our goal is not so much to freeze as to confiscate assets, this is our task." However, the head of the European Commission admitted that it is "not so easy from a legal point of view," but an expert group has already been created in Brussels, which is working to create legal prerequisites for the confiscation of Russian funds and their allocation to the needs of the restoration of Ukraine.
And most importantly, according to von der Leyen, it is the European Commission that should control the distribution of these funds — they say, it has a lot of experience in this matter.
"Dancing on the edge of the volcano"
It cannot be said that the statements of the head of the European Commission were met with a standing ovation. For example, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki warmly supported them, but the German Chancellor was already very restrained, noting that it was a "very, very complex legal issue."
Swiss President Ignazio Cassis spoke even more cautiously, noting that "many aspects of the recovery process still need clarification," especially the question of sources and financing mechanisms and, of course, who will lead the entire process. Kassis called trust the "central element". In my opinion, it sounded as if he did not trust the European Commission as a manager of funds too much.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who spoke via video broadcast (he was invited mainly because Indonesia will soon host the G20 summit, at which Western countries would like to make the topic of anti-Russian sanctions and assistance to Ukraine one of the central ones), said that the priority should not be military assistance, but diplomacy aimed at establishing peace. And while the military operations continue, it is pointless to talk about restoration.
Retired politicians can afford much more than current ones, so former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, commenting on the exorbitant ambitions of the European Commission and its head, said without hesitation: "I cannot understand in any way on the basis of which article of the European agreements the chairman of the commission, Ursula von der Leyen, considers herself competent in matters of arms procurement and foreign policy." Calling the actions of Brussels officials "dancing on the edge of a volcano," Sarkozy noted that EU policy in the Ukrainian crisis is too dependent on "exaltation, irritability, superficial reaction."
The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, was not particularly shy in her expressions, who called the possible confiscation of Russian assets "theft" and warned of the inevitability of retaliatory actions on the part of Moscow.
One Actor Theater
If Scholz and von der Leyen performed a duet, Zelensky, as usual, preferred a solo part. He sent Prime Minister Denis Shmigal to Berlin, and he himself spoke from Kiev in an online format, revealing to the public the already familiar image of the president-fighter: khaki shirt, stubble, tired but confident look... For which, by the way, he was awarded a separate praise from von der Leyen: allegedly, your manner of communicating with the public "significantly helps to keep the topic of Ukraine at the top of the world agenda and mobilize assistance to Ukraine on the world stage."
In my opinion, a person who is not so keen on the "abolition" of Russian culture would easily have seen in the image of Zelensky the features of Khlestakov, Chichikov, Manilov and other unsympathetic characters who came out from under the genius pen of Gogol. The Ukrainian president began by proudly announcing the development of a "transparent plan of priority steps for the restoration" of Ukraine in the amount of $17 billion. And he immediately complained that Kiev "has not yet received a single cent for its implementation" and this injustice should be urgently corrected.
This is already at least 10% more than all income from taxes and fees. Twice as much as the National Bank of Ukraine financed our budget. 4.5 times more than attracted through military bonds."
However, Zelensky not only asked for money, but also promised that they would return to donors a hundredfold. For example, he promised that the European Union would be able to replace Russian energy resources with the help of Ukraine, and Ukrainian "electricity exports potentially — tens of gigawatts — will be one of the fundamental pillars of European climate policy." I note that at exactly this very moment, at another event, European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson called on EU partners to "be generous" and "urgently provide Ukraine with money and equipment to resume energy supply" in the country.
The main thing is inclusiveness
Do not forget that Americans are great pragmatists, so the Marshall Plan was designed not only and not so much for the withdrawal of the European economy from the post—war devastation, but for the transformation of Europe into a stable market for American goods and the sphere of American investment. Which was successfully done. In addition, the implementation of the plan was accompanied by a number of relevant political demands at that time, among which the ousting of communists who had serious influence from the structures of power stood out.
The current "saviors" of the Ukrainian economy do not need to subordinate it: what remains of it after the "delight" of the authorities from Leonid Kravchuk to Vladimir Zelensky has long been mortgaged and re-mortgaged or even belongs to foreign owners. More than one generation of Ukrainians will have to pay off their debts.
But still, the European Commission could not resist and also rolled out the conditions that should accompany the provision of assistance. In von der Leyen's formulation, the demands sound like this: "The restoration of Ukraine is a process under Ukrainian leadership on the terms of reforms, transparency, accountability and the rule of law, democracy, gender equality and inclusiveness."
Seriously? That is, the main thing is gender equality and inclusivity, and Petal mines on the streets of Donetsk, torchlight processions of neo—Nazis on the streets of Kiev and Lviv, secret torture chambers and lawless reprisals, a ban on speaking their native language and persecution because of their origin, children of Donbass who grew up under endless shelling and learned to distinguish between flight and arrival before they learned to read and write — it's like all this doesn't exist, they don't know about it in Europe and don't want to know?
Although why be surprised if von der Leyen ended her speech at the conference with a Bandera greeting? Here, as they say, comments are unnecessary.
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