Page 31 - RusRPTAug24

bne August 2024 Cover story I 31
packages on the way, including a US $61bn aid package approved on April 20, the EU’s four-year €50bn support package passed in February, and most recently a G7 $50bn loan backed by the profits from Russia’s frozen that could be available soon.
The EU support is on the way, but it is spread out and this year’s tranche will not cover the deficit and cannot be used for military spending anyway. Ukraine will receive €5.3bn in grants this
year, says the Minister of Economy of Ukraine, Yulia Svyridenko, who signed the Financial Agreement between Ukraine and the EU that regulates the money that is part of the so-called four- year Ukraine Facility.
Of all the promised money, the most like to arrive soonest is the $50bn G7 loan, but here too there are delays; developing a mechanism for fund transfer is complex, and these
resources are seen as a substitute for, not a supplement to, existing aid. The European Commission plans "very soon" to propose a $50bn loan
G7 countries in Rio de Janeiro on
July 25-26. The problem is that the
EU is looking for ways to circumvent resistance to support for Ukraine from
“But turning on the printing presses again
could outweigh all these factors and stoke fast inflation that will just make the budget shortfall problem worse”
to support Ukraine and finish all the necessary legislative work by the end of the year, said the European Commissioner for Economy, Paolo Gentiloni this week.
The aid plan based on the proceeds from frozen Russian assets will also be discussed by finance ministers and central bank governors of the
Hungary, the EU's most pro-Russia nation that currently holds the bloc’s rotating presidency.
Even these packages will not be sufficient as the cost of the war is running at an estimated $100bn a year or more, according to Timothy Ash, the senior sovereign strategist at BlueBay Asset Management in London.
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