Alwaght- Ukraine war is passing its 17th month while so far tens of thousands were killed and injured and millions of Ukrainians were displaced to Europe. However, the American and European leaders are still fueling the fire of war with their billions in arms aids to Kiev that cost the Western taxpayers but put the arms companies in the black.
It is certain that all of the costs of Ukraine war are provided by the US and Europe to ground the rival Russia and tip the scales in favor of the Western camp. Meanwhile, since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, billions of dollars of financial and military aid have flowed to Ukraine from Western countries, and the US is at the top of the list of providers.
According to the statistical data announced by the "ifw-kiel" institute at the beginning of July, the US has so far sent $80.9 billion in military, financial and humanitarian aids to Kiev. European Union was the second largest provider, having provided $39.3 billion. Next come England and Germany, each with $12.3 billion, Japan with $7 billion, Canada with $5.3 billion, Poland with $4.3 billion, and the Netherlands with $4.1 billion. The 27 member states of the EU and its affiliated institutions have provided a total of $69 billion in financial and military aid to Ukraine, which is less than the total American aid.
Other European countries have helped Ukraine proportionate to their financial capacity, making the total Western aids to Ukraine reach over $170 billion. In addition, all backers of Ukraine recently approved new commitments to provide Kiev with financial and military support to avoid defeat against Moscow.
Washington alone has provided more than $42 billion in military aids to Ukraine, which account for more than half of the Western weapons. Germany, as the second supplier of weapons to Ukraine, has provided $7.5 billion of weapons, and Britain is in the third place with $6.6 billion. Most of the $170 billion was about sending weapons such as missiles, tanks, air defense systems, drones, and other military equipment.
In the 2023 budget, the US has allocated another $40 billion for aid to Ukraine, and given the country's commitments to provide any weapons and financial aid to Kiev, new aid packages are expected in the coming months.
The Americans and their European partners believe that the only way to defeat Russia is to provide advanced weapons to Ukraine and they should continue their support as long as war goes on. The supports over the past 17 months showed that Ukraine war costs the West $340 million daily and these costs are increasing day by day.
Given the global economic conditions and the galloping inflation in some European countries affected by the war in Ukraine, the increase in military expenses causes these governments to resort to social sector budgets and other options to cover these expenses, which can lead to a new wave of protests throughout Europe.
Making profits for arms companies
Though the war the US initiated out of its ambitions has so far imposed heavy damages on Europe and even brought some of the economic giants to the brink of bankruptcy, it has produced rich profits for the American weapons makers. While they cash in on the arms delivered to Ukraine by the US and EU, experts warn that flow of weapons only fuels global violence.
Hanna Homestead, an expert at the Forum on the Arms Trade, commented on the amount of the US arms aids to Ukraine, saying that “this is definitely more than what we in the past gave to other countries, even at the peak of Afghanistan war. The aids we sent to Ukraine’s army are more than NASA’s budget for space projects.
Since the dispute with Ukraine continues and there are no clear prospects for a solution, the arms companies are make big profits.
Western media reports indicate that some of the munitions sent from the West are so advanced that the Ukrainian forces do not know how to use them, and for this reason, these weapons are destroyed on the battlefield due to the lack of sufficient knowledge of the Ukrainians, and this opportunity is good for the companies to capitalize on making these types of weapons again.
Ukraine officials everyday warn the Westerners that they need to provide more weapons to Kiev to enable resistance to the Russian forces, and it is these Kiev’s grievances that propel the gears of the arms industry to produce more munitions and weapons and fill their coffers.
An EU official told Politico magazine: "The reality is that if we look at the war in Ukraine soberly, the country that benefits the most from this war is the United States because it sells gas to Europe at higher prices and with the sale of weapons also earns a huge amount of money.”
Despite the drop in the public support to the military costs and longer war, the market value of the arms manufacturers has substantially increased since the start of war. In the weeks following the Russian attack, the market value of Raytheon, the world's largest producer of guided missiles, jumped from $128 billion at the start of 2022 to $155 billion at the end of last year.
Lockheed Martin also started 2022 with a value of $98 billion, but by the end of the year, this figure reached $127 billion, which is the highest figure since records were made. Lockheed Martin earned more than $15 billion in net income in the first quarter of 2023 alone, which has boosted the company's stock value.
Northrop Grumman started 2022 with $61 billion in capital and ended with $84 billion. It reported that sales for the first quarter of 2023 rose 6 percent to $9.3 billion, compared to $8.8 billion in the first quarter of 2022.
Boeing also recorded its first quarter revenue of $17.9 billion, which has grown by 5 percent compared to the same period last year.
A rule of thumb of the profits of the American arms companies since the start of the Ukraine war shows that although this war has not had any benefits to the Europeans, it has had much to the American arms companies. In addition, although the arms companies receive their money immediately, they hand over the arms to the government several months later. Ukraine had earlier said that it had paid $800 million to Western arms contractors by the end of 2022, but after a year, there is no delivery yet. Some sources have even said that some of the weapons made by the Americans are defective, but Kiev is covering up this issue to avoid gaps on the Western front.
Since the money for weapons sent to Ukraine is provided by the governments, it is paid from the pockets of the people, who have to pay more taxes to meet political ambitions of their leaders. The American government provides a part of its weapons costs from the pockets of European countries, and although these countries have increased their military spending in the past year to boost their security, the European arms companies do not have the necessary capacity to manufacture weapons in a short time. So, they transfer part of their budget to American companies to immediately build the weapons needed by their ally.
Since the start of the war, European media and officials have several times admitted that war has drained their arms stockpiles and they have paid huge money to provide Kiev's necessary arms. In other words, the war in Ukraine has become a profitable business for the American arms companies, and the benefits taste so sweet that it seems that even if the Ukrainians want to end the war with Russia, the arms lobbies will disallow them. Russia argues that the biggest obstacle to ending the conflict is the Americans who claim that the conditions are not ready for peace negotiations.
As it benefited from gas crunch in Europe and sold it to the European companies four times higher than the Russian gas, the US is doing so in arms supplies, and it even makes the Europeans feel indebted by arguing that it confronted Russia because of them.
The White House officials have always tried to convince their public opinion that large-scale aids to Ukraine are for defending their security, but many citizens are discontented with this issue and have repeatedly expressed their opposition to arms supplies to Ukraine.
Many analysts agree that the US government seeks to perpetuate the self-ignited war to inject profits into American arms companies.
500 days after the conflict, there is only one clear winner from the deadly crisis, and that is the US arms industry and its shareholders.
All in all, despite the fact that the West seeks to defeat Russia with further arms supplies to Ukraine and change the balance in its favor, the experience of the past 17 months has proven that these arms supplies have not been successful, and Ukraine even lost 15 percent of its territory. Additionally, tens of thousands of people were killed and hundreds of billions of dollars in cost of war were foisted on the Europeans, and actually, all fell victim to Washington’s political ambitions.
