The EU must seize Russia’s frozen assets, Maria Malmer Stenergard believes, because any other solution would be unfair to Ukraine’s biggest backers.
Nordic countries can’t keep taking on a disproportionate share of supporting Ukraine, Sweden’s foreign minister warned in an interview with POLITICO.
“A few countries take almost all of the burden,” Maria Malmer Stenergard said on her way into a gathering of foreign ministers in Brussels. “That is not fair and it’s not sustainable in the long run.”
She added: “The fact that the Nordic countries, with less than 30 million people, we provide for one-third of the military support that the NATO countries, with almost 1 billion people, provide this year … This is not sustainable. It’s not reasonable in any way. And it says a lot about what the Nordics do — but it says even more about what the others don’t do.”
While I gnash my teeth daily that the US isn’t doing more to support Ukraine, I do not believe for a moment that Europe will allow Ukraine to fall, because if Ukraine falls to Russia, along with all its resources and production capacity, Estonia is next. Armenia is next. Georgia is next. Latvia is next and all the other former USSR territories, and then Poland and the wealth of Europe will start looking real tasty to Putin.
No NATO/EU country wants Ukraine to fall, and they will pour every resource into defending it if it becomes clear the US is no longer a player, and it may come to that depending on what happens in the next several years.
They just think it would be nice if you know, the US could fucking chip in a little, being the wealthiest nation on Earth and apparently we have SOOOOO much money freed up since we decided to let poor people die and we’re not funding space missions or vaccines anymore.
They’re not showing any signs of doing as such.
Honestly despite being an ocean away the united states has already chipped in a large amount of real aid. The EU, being rich countries themselves, should not be relying so heavily on a nation that was already on the brink of fascism.
Oh I’m saying they’re sitting on their hands and expecting a US administration change and business to resume, but if it becomes clear Trump is never going to die and just be replaced by a continual cycle of more and more unhinged nationalists (As is quite likely) they will probably start throwing some actual funding at the problem.
The US has given twice the aid as the entirety of the European Union.