Zelensky Demands Another $14 Billion, Asks Finance Leaders to Take Money from Russia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the heads of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and other finance leaders on Wednesday that his country needs $14.1 billion dollars immediately to begin infrastructure repair, urging them to take some of the money from frozen Russian assets.

Zelensky made the remarks during a teleconference meeting in which he spent much of his time discussing the destruction of civilian infrastructure in cities and the need to return Ukraine to normal in the event that the Russian invasion of the country concludes.

Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 – long before Zelensky, a former comic actor, launched his political career – and colonized Ukraine’s Crimea region that year. The international community did little to react to Russia’s takeover of Crimea or its ongoing support of pro-Russian rebels in the eastern Donbass region, where a Russian-made Buk missile shot down a commercial airliner, Malaysia Airlines Flight 14, in 2014. Outraged officials in Europe and America suddenly began prioritizing the Ukraine war in February 2022, when Russian leader Vladimir Putin announced he would send Russian troops to formally invade Ukraine, rather than merely support local separatists, and that they would conduct a “special operation” to oust Zelensky.

According to the Ukrainian Finance Ministry, America has given Ukraine $15.5 billion in financial assistance between February 2022 and Wednesday. American officials said in February the number was closer to $50 billion, including humanitarian aid; at the time, “financial assistance” totaled approximately $13 billion.

“The United States is the largest donor of financial assistance for Ukraine. The amount of direct budget support has reached $15.5 billion since the start of the full-scale war,” the Finance Ministry said in a social media post this week.

“The Government of Ukraine continues to operate fully, ensuring all priority expenditures of the State Budget, in particular, due to the exceptional assistance of our partners from the United States,” Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko confirmed. “We are especially grateful for the rhythmic and predictable provision of funds this year, which allows us to ensure timely implementation of the budget.”

In his meeting with finance leaders on Wednesday, Zelensky suggested that the scope of the war’s destruction was so great that Ukraine needed many more billions of dollars to reconstruct.

“In order for people to return to Ukraine – for the aggressor [Russia] to lose not only on the battlefield, but literally in everything – we need the approval of a support program to cover the priority projects of rapid recovery,” Zelensky said, according to a transcript published by his office. “The total volume of such projects is $14.1 billion U.S. Our government officials who are now in Washington will present the details.”

Zelensky emphasized Ukraine’s demand that Russia pay for the destruction caused, not for Ukraine simply to rely on the charity of third parties.

“It is already necessary to work on specific mechanisms for directing frozen Russian assets to compensate for the losses caused by Russia,” Zelensky continued. “It must be clearly stated that the assets, including primarily the assets of the Russian Central Bank, will be confiscated. This will be a peacekeeping act – on a global scale. Potential aggressors must see this. And remember that the world can be strong.”

“Ukraine will win this war. It is only a matter of time before Russian aggression is defeated,” Zelensky asserted. “But the evil state should not have any chance to win with ruins.”

Zelensky asserted that Russia should not be granted the ability to see it take “decades” for Ukraine to recover.

In his remarks to Ukrainians during his regular televised address on Wednesday night, Zelensky summarized his message to the finance leaders and again insisted that Russian money should pay for Russian destruction.

“There will be no ruins in Ukraine. This is our goal. And this will be quite concrete proof of the complete defeat of the terrorist state,” Zelensky said, according to a translation by the state-run Ukrinform news outlet. “Especially since the world knows the solution – regarding the assets of Russia, Russian officials, oligarchs who got rich while their state was becoming a terrorist.”

“All these assets should be used to compensate for the losses of those to whom Russia brought pain and suffering. Russian assets must go to recovery after aggression,” Zelensky continued. “The war should be the most costly for the aggressor exactly. And we do everything for this.”

Bloomberg News, which covered Zelensky’s remarks, noted that among those in attendance were U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who visited Kyiv in February to announce a new $1.25 billion American investment in humanitarian aid for Ukraine.

“Our economic support is helping keep the Ukrainian government and critical service providers operational under extraordinary circumstances,” Yellen said at the time. “Just as security assistance bolsters the front lines, I believe that this economic assistance is fortifying the home front – thereby strengthening Ukraine’s resistance.”

The IMF, whose leader also attended Zelensky’s virtual remarks this week, had approved a sum of nearly $16 billion in March over the course of four years to help “bolster the country’s economy, strengthen its institutions and promote long-term growth and reconstruction after the war,” according to Bloomberg.

Ukrainian officials have spent the week urging the world not simply to pledge money to their cause, but to do so rapidly.

“We are negotiating with our partners on the possibility of raising all required funds as early as this summer,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal said on Thursday, announcing that Kyiv had secured $115 billion in “long-term support,” but that “rapid reconstruction projects” in 2023 will cost $14 billion, as Zelensky had noted.

The Russian government, through Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk, responded to the work of the IMF and World Bank in helping Ukraine by accusing the West generally of discrimination against Russians.

“I believe that it’s high time that certain countries come to understand that the task of resolving the issues facing the world today requires putting an end to the prevailing biased attitude towards Russia,” Overchuk told the Russian news agency Tass, “and abandoning all attempts at politicizing the activities of the World Bank, which contravene its charter.”

“Today’s global issues require returning the work of this international institution to a constructive format, as well as having all of its members jointly focused on resolving the issue of poverty and providing coordinated support to developing countries in need,” he added.

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