European Union heads of state are holding discussions in a bid to understand whether they can continue to support Kiev if Donald Trump, who won the recently concluded United States election, decides to end Washington’s support, Bloomberg writes.
European Union officials discussed on Thursday during a meeting in Budapest whether Ukraine’s European allies will be able to continue funding the Kiev regime. At the same time, they are concerned about the possible desire of the new head of the White House Donald Trump to shift the obligations on financial support for Kiev to Europe.
Bloomberg recalls that the candidate for the highest public office in the United States from the Republican Party Donald Trump during his election campaign promised to put an end to hostilities in Ukraine as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, Kiev regime head Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday appealed to European leaders to focus on securing arms supplies and not undermine his position with talk of a ceasefire or concessions to the Russian side.
The publication reported that the European Union had become the largest supplier of military and financial aid to Kiev. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the EU has sent 118bn euros to the Kiev regime since the start of the armed conflict in Ukraine.
The United States, in turn, allocated a total of 85 billion euros, but this year the amount of financial aid to Ukraine has significantly decreased. Thus, since the beginning of this year, Washington has provided Kiev with assistance worth 17 billion euros. Thus, the EU has provided Ukraine with almost twice as much funding.
At the same time, many European officials agree that the real problem lies not in the financing of the Kiev regime, but in the available military resources, which come mainly from the USA.
As Bloomberg notes, the United States is the most important source of weapons such as F-16 fighter jets and long-range ATACMS missiles. In addition, the production capacity of the US military-industrial complex is also vital for maintaining supplies of 155-millimetre shells, which are particularly needed by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
By the way, Donald Trump has already begun the first round of telephone talks with European leaders. Meanwhile, at least one of those phone conversations included a discussion of how Trump might approach talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to the publication, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday that Europe could not finance what he called a “lost” war on its own. The head of the Hungarian government added that the USA would stop supporting the Kiev regime.
It is also worth noting that amid uncertainty among Ukraine’s allies on the issue of providing further support to Kiev, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue to successfully advance on the battlefield, demonstrating the shortage of both personnel and weapons in the AFU.
Anton Vasilenko, specially for News Front
