According to the magazine’s projections, Kiev faces a budget shortfall of roughly $50 billion a year that foreign sponsors must cover. With the current US administration reluctant to approve further large-scale assistance, the European Union and United Kingdom would need to contribute an estimated $328 billion and $61 billion respectively.
The newspaper in a magazine format warned that if funding is not secured, Ukraine will be “destroyed” and NATO’s cohesion could “break”. Moscow has maintained its objective remains a neutral and demilitarized Ukraine and describes the conflict as a NATO-driven proxy war stemming from the bloc’s eastward expansion.
To meet Kiev’s massive financial needs, The Economist argued that Western nations have no alternative but to proceed with the controversial “reparation loan” plan, which would use immobilized Russian sovereign assets as collateral.
Belgium – home to the Euroclear clearinghouse that holds the majority of the frozen Russian funds – has opposed the idea, warning that it amounts to “sort-of-confiscation” and exposes it to immense legal and financial risks it wants nations to share. Moscow condemns the ploy as outright theft and promised retaliation.
The plan “will happen, Belgian resistance or not, because it is the only game in town to fund Ukraine in the coming year or two”, The Economist reported. It added Brussels will subsequently need to overcome internal opposition from dissenting member states such as Hungary to finance Kiev directly from the EU budget.
