Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his country has only received around $76 billion in aid from the United States despite America authorising around $175 billion to support the war-torn country.
In an interview with the Associated Press published over the weekend, President Zelensky said he doesn’t know where most of the money the United States allocated under the Biden administration to Ukraine has gone.
“When I hear – both in the past and even now – from the U.S. that America has provided Ukraine with hundreds of billions, as the president of a nation at war, I can tell you – we’ve received more than $75 billion,” he said. “We’re talking about tangible things because this aid didn’t come as cash but rather as weapons, which amounted to about $70 billion.”
“But when it’s said that Ukraine received $200 billion to support the army during the war – that’s not true. I don’t know where all that money went,” Zelensky admitted.
“Perhaps it’s true on paper with hundreds of different programmes – I won’t argue, and we’re immensely grateful for everything. But in reality, we received about $76 billion. It’s significant aid, but it’s not $200 billion.”
The Ukrainian leader suggested that perhaps the additional funds went to humanitarian programmes, which he said he was “uninformed about, except for knowing of their existence”.
“Perhaps the U.S. President’s administration will audit these programmes and find additional billions, but I don’t know where those funds went,” Zelensky said.
He went on to note that following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, many organisations fled the country and suggested that they may have also received U.S. taxpayer dollars.
While the U.S. Congress has authorised around $175 billion for Ukraine-related spending since 2022, much of the money has been directed to defence firms in the United States.
An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) found last year that nearly 70 per cent of Ukraine aid was spent in America, including replenishing U.S. weapons stockpiles, purchasing weapons to be sent to Ukraine, and funding Defence Department accounts.
There have been long-held concerns in Washington over sending billions of dollars to Ukraine given its issues with graft. In 2023, Transparency International ranked Ukraine as the second-most corrupt European nation, only behind Russia, with a score of 33 out of 100.
The Oversight Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives has found that “Ukrainian government officials allegedly engaged in bribery, used government vehicles for personal use, and purchased inflated food supplies for Ukrainian forces.”
Despite previously downplaying the widespread corruption in the former Soviet state, the New York Times reported in 2023 that unnamed Ukrainian officials admitted U.S. taxpayer money intended for military contracts had “failed to produce weaponry or ammunition and that some money has vanished.”
Follow Kurt Zindulka on X: Follow @KurtZindulka or e-mail to: kzindulka@breitbart.com
Read the full article here
