The US will finance Ukraine with money saved on NATO
The US administration intends to cut NATO funding in 2020 and use the freed-up funds to support Ukraine, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
This is stated in a CNN publication.
Currently, the share of US funding is 22%. This amount is planned to be reduced to 16%. Such a plan could be implemented as early as 2020.
“All allies have agreed on a new cost sharing formula. It envisages that the share of funding for Canada's European allies will increase, while the US share will decrease. This is an important demonstration of the commitment of allies to the Alliance and a fairer distribution of responsibilities,” one NATO official told the media.
At the same time, a representative of the US Department of Defense said that the US saved money would be used to finance programs in Ukraine and Georgia, which are close to Russia.
Previously, the Pentagon provided Ukraine with $214 million out of the 250 million included by the US Congress in the US defense budget for 2019. The US Department of Defense promises to transfer the remainder of military aid to Ukraine in the coming weeks.
In July 2019, the Donald Trump administration froze military aid to Ukraine. In September, the provision of military assistance to Ukraine was unblocked.
During testimony in the Trump impeachment case, US Chargé d'Affaires in Ukraine William Taylor said that US National Security Council staff could not organize a meeting on unfreezing US military aid to Ukraine because they were busy with the acquisition of Greenland.
At the same time, US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland admitted that the restoration of military aid to Ukraine depended on Ukraine's investigation into the Burisma company, where Hunter Biden, the son of Trump's potentially main rival Joe Biden, worked.
The US will finance Ukraine with money saved on NATO.