NATO Seeking To 'Trump Proof' Future Ukraine Funds

When NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg this week unveiled a $100 billion, five-year fund for Ukraine which he pitched to alliance foreign ministers in preparation for the July annual summit, a number of pundits and publications immediately saw through it...

NATO leadership is ultimately seeking to "Trump-proof" support for the Ukraine war amid growing 'fears' the GOP frontrunner will take the White House after November, after which he's expected to pull the plug on Biden's billions for Ukraine.

Well-known career diplomat Chas Freeman told Responsible Statecraft that this scheme is "a case of throwing good money—in this case, borrowed money—after bad."

Freeman explained, "NATO has run out of Ukrainians to sacrifice on the battlefield as well as the armaments production needed to equip the existing, greatly depleted Ukrainian armed forces. A bond fund will neither create more Ukrainians nor produce more weapons to arm those who have so far survived."

Stoltenberg has been fairly transparent about his aims, with the Financial Times saying he's doing it as a means "to shield the mechanism against the winds of political change."

Freeman has commented further that what Ukraine and Europe really need "is peace, and this demands negotiations with Russia."

"This is a shameless attempt to use financial capitalism to avoid that reality, while further enriching munitions manufacturers. NATO is not a hedge fund and should not attempt to behave like one," he continued. "When alliances attempt to borrow money for lost causes, you would be right to judge that they know the jig is up."

As for Stoltenberg's words before NATO foreign ministers on Wednesday, he said Ukraine's government and military still has "urgent needs" and that "any delay in providing support has consequences on the battlefield as we speak."

"We must ensure reliable and predictable security assistance to Ukraine for the long haul so that we rely less on the voluntary contributions and more on NATO commitments, less on short-term offers and more on multiyear pledges," Stoltenberg said. "The reason why we do this is the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine. It is serious … We see how Russia is pushing, and we see how they try to win this war by just waiting us out."

But... as we reported previously, Hungary stands firmly in the way, having already announced its "opposition to increasing NATO’s coordination role in arms deliveries and training Ukrainian forces, refusing to participate in planning, operations, or funding," according to a foreign ministry statement.