guns and lots of money. The West thus supports Ukraine in its fight against Russia. The US alone has pledged $68 billion in economic, humanitarian and military aid. At the international Ukraine conference in Paris on Tuesday, aid pledges of about one billion euros were made.
“What Putin could not do with his tanks, he is now trying to do with attacks on infrastructure,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, 42, said after the conference. Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin (70) has been following perfidious tactics for weeks. Power plants, oil and gas storage facilities and transportation hubs in Ukraine are under attack from long-range fire. Because of this, there are regular power outages or interruptions in the water supply in the country. With this, Putin not only wants to exhaust the Ukrainians, but also to increase costs.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (44) estimated the energy needs of his war-torn country this winter at around 800 million euros. “Power generators are now as necessary as armored vehicles and protective vests,” Zelensky said via video link at the start of the international Ukraine conference in Paris. “We are doing everything we can to defend against energy terror.”
The economy in Ukraine has been hit hard
Aid is getting more and more expensive and the Kremlin boss is apparently aiming for the West to stop helping. “There is clearly a risk of a more severe economic contraction, and the only way to avoid it is to provide more financial support,” Jacob Kirkegaard of the Peterson Institute for International Economics told the Washington Post. However, he does not know if the West still has the will to continue with this.
Before the attacks on the infrastructure, there was still hope that Ukraine would be able to reimburse part of the costs. But the economy is suffering from the attacks. “For large industrial and metal plants, these blackouts are very dangerous,” Dennis Sakva, an energy analyst at Dragon Capital, a Ukrainian investment firm, told the US newspaper.
Otherwise it just looks bad. The Russians have destroyed ports and bridges, and agricultural exports have been decimated. Up to a third of the country’s forests have been destroyed. In addition, large parts of the industry in Ukraine are occupied by the Russians.
No attack breaks on Christmas and New Year
“How can an economy function at all – while supporting the war effort – when civilian infrastructure is so badly damaged? I don’t think we’ve seen anything like it before,” economist Simon Johnson told the Washington Post.
Moreover, the West is running out of weapons. From a military point of view, the US can hardly afford the massive shipments of arms and ammunition. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Americans – like their European allies – disarmed drastically.
The end of the attacks is not yet in sight. On Wednesday, the Kremlin announced that there would be no pause in the fighting over Christmas or New Year. (jmh/AFP)