'Crumbs From Master's Table': Ukrainian MP Calls New Aid Gift to US Military-Industrial Complex
11:52 GMT 21.04.2024 (Updated: 12:15 GMT 21.04.2024)
© Photo : Mauricio Campino
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The House of Representatives voted Saturday to approve $95 billion in new foreign aid, including close to $61 billion for Ukraine. The legislation, coming after six months of delays amid a congressional battle over US border security, has met with high praise from senior Ukrainian officials. But not everyone in Kiev is equally thrilled.
The $61 billion in new assistance which made its way through the House is just a drop in the bucket compared to Kiev’s needs, and the majority of the funds will go to the US military-industrial complex, Ukrainian parliamentarian Oleksandr Dubinsky has suggested.
“Officials from the presidential administration happily ran to the Internet to tell everyone that now they are saved: the American aid package will not allow Putin to quickly win, the tension over the ‘May issue’ [questions over Volodymyr Zelensky’s legitimacy as president after the cancellation of elections, ed.] will subside, money will flow into the budget, new weapons will arrive, and so on and so forth. But most importantly, this package means that Trump has been dumped, and their beloved Joe [Biden] is back in the saddle. All of this, as usual, is a lie,” the Rada lawmaker wrote in a Telegram post, proceeding to explain why.
Firstly, regarding money promised for the stabilization of the budget, yes, Kiev will receive it – in the amount of $7.8 billion. This money, Dubinsky pointed out, cannot be spent on pensions and social benefits, but will be reserved for the salaries of bureaucrats and public sector employees.
“At the same time, the overall budget deficit remains colossal, and even when these funds are taken into account, stands at about $20 billion, the impact of which will become apparent from the second half of the year onward,” he wrote.
Secondly, regarding the idea that Ukraine will get a lot of new weapons, Dubinsky noted that this may be true, but the point of the project lies elsewhere.
“Most of the funds will go to the American military-industrial complex through the Pentagon. This is a lobbying law sponsoring the US military-industrial complex, which can supply weapons to Ukraine on credit through the US Department of Defense. That is, they receive financial incentives for a guaranteed market. Let me remind you that the Ukrainian defense sector is not allowed to sell weapons; supposedly, there is no money in the budget for this, and the used capacity of the domestic military-industrial complex stands at 30 percent. Thus, the cries of Ukrainian officials about a shortage of weapons are coming not in the interests of the Ukrainian military or industry, but the interests of the lobbyists of the US military-industrial complex,” Dubinsky wrote.
As for the idea that the new US "aid" package targets former US President Donald Trump, that’s also “complete nonsense,” the lawmaker believes, pointing out that the new assistance is credit, giving Washington new powers beyond even the European Union to “control the Ukrainian government through greater dependence.”
“At the same time, the go-ahead from Trump to [House Speaker Mike] Johnson to put the aid package to a vote means the Trump campaign has come to an understanding with donors from the American military-industrial complex. Elections are coming up and candidates are fundraising,” Dubinsky suggested.
In the final analysis, Dubinsky characterized the $61 billion loan as “crumbs from the master’s table,” and the “result of a long political game (which cost us lives, territory and infrastructure),” in which Ukraine has been made to work “in the interests of specific political and lobbying groups in the United States.” In addition, “since further aid packages seem to be unlikely, interest in this Ukrainian government from the American establishment has been exhausted,” he concluded.
Dubinsky is a former member of Zelensky’s Servant of the People Party who became an independent in 2021. He is one of the few lawmakers in today’s Ukrainian parliament finding the fortitude to criticize the government. Ukraine has been on a course toward authoritarianism since the 2014 US and EU-backed coup, with authorities banning several major parties and arresting opposition politicians on trumped-up charges of sedition and treason.
The US Treasury slapped sanctions on Dubinsky in early 2021, accusing him of being part of a "Russia-linked foreign influence network" in the wake of the release of damning audio recordings by a fellow lawmaker detailing Joe Biden's alleged pay-to-play corruption schemes in Ukraine while serving as former POTUS Barack Obama's vice president. Dubinsky was expelled from the Servant of the People parliamentary fraction and expelled from the party shortly after. In 2023, he was placed under investigation by the Security Service of Ukraine, and arrested on charges of treason and suspicion of running an operation to get Ukrainian men of fighting age out of the country. He was placed in a pre-trial detention center in November, where he was attacked. His arrest has been extended since then. The lawmaker has called the case against him a politically motivated fabrication.
26 August 2023, 18:23 GMT
