this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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[–] Kase 2 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Could you share where you got your number? The most recent source I found on google showed $44.2 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since the invasion began. From what I can tell this doesn't include other humanitarian aid, so I wonder if that makes up the difference?

Whatever the case, if you have more info I'd appreciate it if you could share

[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Hm, I was under the impression there recently was a package of $100 billion being discussed, but it appears that at least some of that money was supposed to go to Israel, not to Ukraine, and I'm not entirely sure if it ever made it through the house.

As far as what's already been spent, the BBC has reported a total of $46.6 billion as of February 21 this year, and the Council of Foreign Relationships claims a total of $76.8 billion, of which the aforementioned $46.6 billion constitute the direct military aid.

Of the bill mentioned in the first paragraph, $61 billion would supposedly go to Ukraine, so if passed, this would definitely bring the total to over $100 billion. So I regretfully admit to having slightly exaggerated my figures for dramatic effect, and humbly beg for your forgiveness, but least I only missed the mark by a single order of magnitude, and we're still somewhere in the right ballpark.

[–] Kase 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for your reply! Some people on the internet don't respond to criticism well, I'm sure you know what I mean, so it's always nice when someone is chill about it.

I honestly don't follow politics too closely, so I wasn't aware of the bill you referenced. Thanks for filling me in!

And yeah, your point still stands regardless of the number. I don't personally know much about how the federal budget works, so I'm just here to learn.

If you don't mind telling me, what would be the ideal response by the US in your opinion? Would you have wanted us to send less (or zero) aid to Ukraine?

[–] [email protected] -3 points 9 months ago

I honestly don't know, since I'm neither a politician nor a foreign policy expert, but it certainly seems to me that the critics were right on this one, and it was mostly a useless proxy war designed to fill the coffers of the morally ambiguous and well-connected elite at the cost of thousands of innocent human lives, so it seems that either preventing it from the getgo or not funding it all would have been the better choice. But hindsight is always 20/20.

Yes, if Putin had invaded and we had done nothing at all, some lives would have still been lost, but most likely the Ukrainian army would have folded much quicker and the death toll would have been much lower than it stands now. And let's not forget, the whole thing only started because Biden greenlit that Nordstream Two pipeline that Trump had spent his entire four years blocking for fear of precisely this incident. Literally within a week of the pipeline's approval, the first Russian boots were on Ukrainian soil, so whatever you think of the orange cheeto, it seems he was 100% on the money on this one.