Friday marks one year since Russia invasion of Ukraine, and U.S. taxpayers have been charged $113 billion

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SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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69

By CASEY HARPER | THE CENTER SQUARE

Friday marks the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, resulting in well over $100 billion in American taxpayer dollars being set aside to help the Eastern European country fend off its aggressor.

Congress committed more than $113 billion dollars in support for Ukraine across four major spending packages in 2022 alone, with the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget saying more is likely to come.

“Of the $113 billion approved in 2022, about three-fifths ($67 billion) has been allocated toward defense needs and the remaining two-fifths ($46 billion) to nondefense concerns such as general Ukrainian government aid, economic support, and aid for refugee resettlement,” the CRFB said in a statement.

While these funds have already been set aside, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the money won’t be fully spent for years.

CBO estimates that three-quarters of the funding will be spent by the end of fiscal year 2026.

The Biden administration has handed weapons, not just cash, directly to Ukraine. For example, the Department of Defense in January announced about $3 billion worth of “security assistance” with $225 million from the State Department for “Foreign Military Financing to contribute to the long-term capacity and modernization of Ukraine’s military.”

To accomplish this, DOD emptied out part of its weapons reserves for Ukraine.

“The Presidential Drawdown is the twenty-ninth such drawdown of equipment from DoD inventories for Ukraine that the Biden Administration has authorized since August 2021,” the DOD said.

Here are some of the military assets handed over in the January package, according to the DOD:

  • 50 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles with 500 TOW anti-tank missiles and 250,000 rounds of 25mm ammunition;
  • 100 M113 Armored Personnel Carriers;
  • 55 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAPs);
  • 138 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs);
  • 18 155mm self-propelled Howitzers and 18 ammunition support vehicles;
  • 70,000 155mm artillery rounds;
  • 500 precision-guided 155mm artillery rounds;
  • 1,200 155mm rounds of Remote Anti-Armor Mine (RAAM) Systems;
  • 36 105mm towed Howitzers and 95,000 105mm artillery rounds;
  • 10,000 120mm mortar rounds;
  • Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS);
  • RIM-7 missiles for air defense;
  • 4,000 Zuni aircraft rockets;
  • Approximately 2,000 anti-armor rockets;
  • Sniper rifles, machine guns, and ammunition for grenade launchers and small arms;
  • Claymore anti-personnel munitions;
  • Night vision devices and optics;
  • Spare parts and other field equipment.

But the U.S. isn’t alone in this support. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German group tracking aid to Ukraine, European Union nations and groups have allocated nearly $60 billion dollars to Ukraine.

“Overall, pledges of humanitarian assistance remained relatively constant over the course of the year, while the share of financial and military support pledges grew,” the group said.

Some experts say the funds help keep Russia at bay and send a message to discourage China from similar aggression.

“There is a clear strategic advantage for the United States in the defeat of Vladimir Putin’s barbaric war on Ukraine, both in terms of preventing future Russian aggression in Europe and deterring Chinese expansionism by demonstrating Western resolve and lethality,” Victoria Coates, an expert at the Heritage Foundation, told The Center Square.

Some Republicans have hesitated to support the large aid packages to Ukraine, saying that money could be better spent at home and raising questions about how the funds are being spent.

“We must halt Ukraine war funding,” said Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz. “The Biden Administration is dragging us into major war rather than seeking diplomatic solutions.”

Coates criticized Biden for “politicizing” Ukraine funding.

“If President Biden continues to politicize support for Ukraine [and] refuses to work closely with conservatives on Capitol Hill, he risks undermining a year of concerted U.S. support for Ukraine, allowing Putin to regroup for potential future aggression, failing to exploit the opportunity to deter China, and repeating the experience of previous Presidents who have been unable to effectively make the case for war support to the American people,” she said. “All of which would be a waste of the $100 billion already committed to Ukraine.”

The invasion anniversary comes just after President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

As The Center Square previously reported, Biden held a joint press conference with Zelenskyy to “reaffirm our unwavering and unflagging commitment to Ukraine’s democracy, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.”

“That dark night one year ago the world was literally at the time bracing for the fall of Kyiv,” Biden said at a news conference with the Ukrainian leader.

It doesn’t appear that aid to Ukraine will dry up anytime soon.

“I will announce another delivery of critical equipment, including artillery ammunition, anti-armor systems, and air surveillance radars to help protect the Ukrainian people from aerial bombardments,” Biden said in a statement Monday morning. “And I will share that later this week, we will announce additional sanctions against elites and companies that are trying to evade or backfill Russia’s war machine.”

START stop: Putin says he’ll end nuclear arms treaty

69 COMMENTS

  1. That’s not true. The war started in 2014 when Obama and his CIA carried out a coup d’etat in Ukraine. He and Sen Lugar went over and arranged for the illegal bio weapons labs. (Search the photos of them together!). There is still a lab named after Lugar in Georgia. (Not the US one).

    • You’re saying all of the accepted socialist talking points about supposed American imperialism comrade. Congratulations.

      • And you, c(ommunist)man, are mindlessly repeating all the warmongering propaganda and talking points of the US deep state and its handmaidens in the corrupt and self-serving corporate media.
        .
        Tell me, how DO those boots taste when you lick them?

      • All of which are true. Comrade. You can listen to the leaked state department cable in which Victoria Newland brags about it in her own voice.

  5. The statement “$100 billion in American taxpayer dollars being set aside to help the Eastern European country” is nonsense. $100 billion were printed from thin air, accelerating the inflation tax destroying our economy. These digital and paper dollars are enriching our military industrial complex and special interests in control of our country. Ukraine was the poorest and most corrupt country in Europe before we installed the fascist Zelenskyy regime in 2014 and goaded them into provoking a war against Russia. Assuming all “70,000 155mm artillery rounds” make it to the few remaining M777 155mm howitzers we sent previously (the few older Soviet artillery systems Ukraine has left are not 155mm), it is less than a 12 day supply at the burn rate in this high intensity war. We are destroying Ukraine and its’ people, not helping them. Aside from the permanent loss of the resource rich eastern oblasts the depopulation through emigration and battlefield deaths will leave the impoverished remainder another failed state. Our government is creating the equivalent of what we did to Libya in Eastern Europe. The vast amounts of weapons sold on the black market by the corrupt Ukrainian authorities will cause additional problems for decades.

  6. And every single dollar of it was well spent!
    .
    “We have to fight them over there, so we can continue destroying our democrazy over here”.
    Or something like that.

    • Yeah, we sorta had the same idea when we helped the Allies defeat Hitler. I guess you would also disparage that effort.

  7. Stop sending gear, stop sending our tax dollars, just full stop. Russia is the only smart party in this whole conflict. They’re sending the broken millennials, and gen z’ers without expensive gear into the meat grinder. Conveniently removes the leeches attached to their economy since they don’t work and just collect government handouts. Reduces cost and embarrassment which is the two biggest labels of these newer generations. We need to be taking notes, not writing bank notes.

  8. Ukraine is NOT a democracy. Zelenskyy cares little for individual freedom. Opposition political parties in Ukraine are outlawed. The government controls all media and has for many years. I have seen a report that some religious groups have been suppressed (I will confirm). Ukraine historically is one of the most corrupt nations. The US support for Ukraine is ill-defined and limitless. Ms. Coates is delusional if she thinks that there is little risk of a wider war with Russia. The potential for a shooting war with Russia increases every day. A few nuclear weapons will kill tens, if not hundreds, of millions. Stop the madness.

  9. Meanwhile, our states (Ohio) have current issues that they won’t even go and see to offer assistance. They deny federal aid.

  11. Bunch of Russian sympathizers on here. The same type of people that said we should have stayed out of WWII prior to Pearl Harbor. Do you really think someone like Putin is going to stop at Ukraine? Maybe some of you should move over there and try to restart publishing Pravda.

    • What a ridiculous shill you are, c(ommunist)man, parroting all the mindless platitudes and propaganda of the EVIL warmonger US deep state establishment! How can anyone like you NOT realize how you are being led by the nose by those in power to serve THEIR interests, and to work against your own interests?
      .
      Yes, Putin is an autocrat. He is no friend of liberty, and I have little respect or regard for him. But it is the most idiotic of false dichotomy ‘thinking’ to assume that those decrying this insane and needless rush to war are in the pocket of the enemy of our own corrupt and sociopathic ruling class.

      • Your foil hat is continuing to cut off the circulation to your brain. Try taking it off and seeing reality for a change.

        • Just what I expected from a kneejerk conformist and establishment shill: random blather with zero intelligent content.
          You are at least consistent in your lunacy and dishonesty.

    • The US government is the most effective Russian sympathizer ever: Blow up Nordstream which fatally destroys Germany’s/European Union’s economy and causes Russia to increase safe and stable oil exports and revenues to the east. Sanction Russia, which further destroys European economies and causes the value of the Ruble to escalate, accelerates the creation of BRICS which is replacing the US dollar as world reserve currency and Petrodollar. Create a viable alternative to the Swift banking system further eliminating large economies from US and Globalist control and influence. Create the strongest economic and military alliance between Russia and China in history. Motivate Russia to re open Soviet era arms factories which are producing more advanced weapon systems and ammunition in a year than the entire west is able in a decade. Cause Russia to mobilize and enlarge standing military to 1.5 million. Unify the Russian public in support of the United Russia Party and marginalize opposition, including solidifying the majority of oligarchs who until sanctions were pro Western. A neutral observer might come away with the view that our American Uniparty hates the common American people and is only good at creating enemies and losing wars.

    • We should have stayed out of WW2. Wasn’t our fight until we were attacked.

      European problems need European solutions.

      Funny. I’m old enough to remember when the left was anti war, anti involvement, and called us interventionist. Curious how times have changed.

      • Europe has always been a cesspool addicted to war. Blame it on the Romans or the Etruscans worries in the carthaginians and any number of goth villages in the region. When Germany advanced into Africa, and the Mideast, it was time to act. They were getting too big for their britches. Usually it was the left who got us into war like FDR, Truman, Kennedy Johnson Carter and his failed rescue attempt, even Clinton with Somalia and I think he lobbed a few cruise missiles into some training camps in Afghanistan. Sometimes war is justified. Sometimes war is called for by the American public such as after 911. Patton was a Republican and had they let him sweep through Eastern Europe and take Russia backed by an armament of nukes, we never would have had a cold war but then the downside is we probably never would have made it to the Moon. Lots of our inventions that we regularly give no thought to were developed because of war. Some good things come of war. Bad guys get killed and we develop our technology to continue on the path of enlightenment.

    • When are you going to sign up to fight the Russians? Soon I hope as you can go defend Europe. Don’t forget to give the big guy his 10%. We don’t need to be involved with Europe’s problems as we bailed them out twice now it’s their turn to stand up. Problem is they are so woke they will just lay down and cry for the US to do something.

  13. Except for Bush 2 (& probably Bush 1) haven’t all the wars been started by Dems?
    Are they the party of the arms manufacturers?
    The rich get richer & they donate to the Democratic Party to protect their wealth.

  14. Wow. Sad to see so many MRAK readers parrot Putin’s line and spew conspiratorial lies. I truly do fear for our nation if the comments here are representative of a broader sentiment among so-called conservatives. I remember a time in the not-so distant past when Ronald Reagan stood up for American values and spared no expense in fighting autocrats around the world, of which Putin is obviously case study #1 in the present day. I’ll always be a Reagan Republican, and I’ll always stand by Ukraine against Putin’s aggression. I’d much rather the United States spend a 100 billion or more in Ukraine than a trillion or more and American lives fighting another European war to save democracy. If Putin has his way with Ukraine, as some of you seem to want, that’s precisely where this will end up.

    • Unlike deep-state owned creeps like Anthony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, and the sleepy, demented Biden, Ronald Reagan would have met personally with Putin, worked out a solution, and avoided the whole situation. Many, if not most MRAK readers have studied all sides of the situation, and recognize that Russia is not at fault. Neocon warmongers will always accuse others of doing exactly what they have done themselves. We are not the world’s cop. We are the world’s big fat bully. – M.John

  16. I was a Republican for a long time, but not anymore. Why? As Arliss Sturgeluski once said, I didn’t leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me.

  17. “You go to war with the Army you have.” Rumsfeld, Dec 30 2004. While we have an excellent army, and military at the top of the curve, we have learned from Russia’s invasion into Ukraine, that you must also go to war with the stockpile we don’t have, and the supply chain we seem unable to fix.
    The lesson learned from Russia’s war in Europe proves that we are not able to ensure peace, because, oops, we aren’t really prepared for war. Our stockpile is insufficient. Our industrial base is MIA and can’t be simply restarted as if it was Dec 7th, 1941 all over again. Russia’s war on their neighbor: Ukraine has taught us, those of us reading ISW (understandingwar.org) at least, that we are willing to say we support the underdog who is on the receiving end of up to 60,000 artillery shells per day, but we don’t have the material to provision the defenders adequately.
    Taiwan’s leadership is also becoming aware that a modern war consumes vast amounts of material and manpower in astoundingly short periods of time. Material that had better be in their stockpile because shipping to an island in a war zone is just adding targets.
    Some of Congress grasp the issue. Others hide behind mindless claims that moneys would be spent elsewhere. I disagree. Education is not cheap. The money spent is absolutely essential to our survival as a free nation.
    Spend more and send material faster, I say.
    I’d rather not have to learn Chinese.

    • You won’t have to learn Chinese. Their takeover of the United States is never going to happen. We have weapons so powerful and unconventional, the Chinese haven’t thought of a way to try to steal them yet. Sleep sound. The Chinese think a thousand years in the future and most of their decisions are business decisions not based on ego or a Swiss bank account.

  18. I understand both sides. Better to proxy fight there than real fight in Poland.

    But we’re broke. Joe is spending on everything except things that bring on money (oil). This is not sustainable.

    My friends in the military tell me this level of throwing munitions at Ukraine come at the expense of our own ability to fight.

    Could we fight if we wanted to? Joe and the idiots who are the Joint Chiefs are more concerned about creating strife in the ranks than killing Russians or anybody else.

    Simple fact: the Russians didn’t invade with Trump in office. They were under heavy sanctions and had no idea how he’d respond. Joe ends sanctions, starts spending like he has it on non military matters, and there they go.

    Makes one wonder: if Joe was so concerned about Ukraine’s military why not give all the military gear he left to the Taliban to Ukraine?

    Did Joe not have his cut yet?

    • It would be easier if Ukraine could get Biden to fold. Joe stays in office and is the Big hero, Putin takes his multi-billions with a capital B of stolen dollars and finds a nice quiet place to ride his horse shirtless on the beach to live out his life. I’m not too worried with us trading shots in a nuclear battle. I believe that we have satellites in orbit that can take down just about anything launched. Possibly even on board the space plane. All brought to you by Ronald Reagan and President Eisenhower after his meeting with Thor. Yes Putin will probably LOB a couple of tactical nukes in the direction of Ukraine if he can get them off the pad. That’s probably inevitable giving his ego. That doesn’t have anything to do with us though not in the big picture. It’ll probably just hurry along our plans that we have written 20 to 30 years in the future.

  19. For all those, like cman, who blindly support and accept the warmongering propaganda of the Wasington/NATO deep state and the globalist tyrants backing it without questioning the party line and official narrative, or even without attempting to exercise any independent or critical thinking on the matter, I will simply offer the following quote:
    .
    “Those who are able to see beyond the lies and shadows of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.”
    .
    – Plato, 4th century BC

    • Oh wow, a quote! What a powerful retort. All you’re really doing is repeating the same tired phrases: deep state, globalists, radical leftist…and on and on. All you do is repeat the same “talking points” while providing zero proof for any of your positions. And I’m the one with a lack of independent thought? What a joke.

      If people like you were running this country, in another year. we’d be using the Cyrillic alphabet and being force fed Pelmeni.

  20. Alaska Jim,
    I really don’t think MRAK readers are siding with Putin. More likely, they are suspicious of Ukraine’s corrupt nature and the $$hundreds of billions being sent there with little accounting from the Ukrainians. Shouldn’t Europe be defending Ukraine? Look at their physical proximity to Russia. Putin is unstable. If China allies with them in our proxy war with Russia, we could be seriously looking at a lights out, doomsday scenario. Is it worth it? Would you want that?

    • Calm down. The lights are fine. Sometimes a little war is a good thing. I’m not saying we should melt down the planet. I’m pretty sure we’re not going to let that happen. Even though the missiles may not be pointed at continental United States, if fired I doubt they will even reach orbit.

      • A war is not good unless the ones who started it and want it are doing the fighting. To many innocent. People get hurt and the war machine gets the money. Plus the environment gets ruined where’s Greta.

  21. Putin and his government are a state sponsor of terror, and need to be treated as such. In time, there may be enough dead and wounded Russians that the Russian people will turn on their nasty government leaders that have stolen billions from the Russian people.

    So far, Putin has:

    1. Caused as many as 200,000 Russian casualties- combined dead and wounded.
    2. Caused NATO to expand.
    3. Greatly weakened the Russian economy.
    4. Isolated Russia from the nations that matter.
    5. Demonstrated how ill equipped, and incompetent his military really is.

    Smashing Putin and his thugs is the right call.

    • We are in this mess because we tried to be the worlds policeman and look at where we are and all the enemies we have in the world today. This is not our fight. Hunter should be there fighting for his paycheck. Bidens putting us into a corner and the options are going to be ugly.

      • Mark, while I’d like to see Hunter in a foxhole, you make the mistake of ignoring the fact that the 143 civilized nations of our world condemned the Russian invasion.

        Glad to see you stand with China, Iran, and India- the scumbag countries of the world.

        • I don’t stand with them at all. You need to see the big picture and if you like war so much maybe you should reenlist or volunteer? 143 leaders are trying to send people to fight for what? We saved Europe twice and if they don’t learn then to bad.

        • Vet – 143 “civilized” nations aren’t condemning the Russian invasion – their corrupt leaders, who are controlled by the World Economic Forum and other globalist entities, have condemned it. Big difference. There have been many antiwar protests in Europe, but we don’t hear about it because of the censorship in the legacy mainstream media.

    • Funny. Since Putin invaded, the following also happened.

      -Putin is still firm in power
      -Russia and China are closer militarily and economically than they have been in 50 years.
      -Russia is forging ties with Iran, a country whose “mission statement” is to destroy America.
      -We are depleting our military stockpile. Weapons and munitions we may need against someone else. Or them.
      -by expansion of NATO, a debatable organization, Russia has been antagonized towards the west. Also, the expansion antagonized an already difficult ally, Turkey.
      -we have funneled untold millions of unaccounted for dollars to a wildly corrupt state. One with dubious ties to Biden’s family.
      -Ukraine lied about their missiles accidentally hitting Poland, lied about it, and tried to goad us (NATO) into full scale war with Russia.
      -we are fueling a debt our grandchildren can’t pay.
      -there is zero endgame/exit strategy.

      It’s not our war any more than the Balkans was. If you want to fight, fight. I’m sure they’ll take you.

      Leave the nation out of it until a clear and present danger is shown.

      • Avenger, you skipped over the 200,000 Russian casualties, and Russia being a state sponsor of terror. Oh, and Russia sending missiles into cities to kill women and children. Glad we know who you stand with.

        • know me, do you?

          Come on Rambo. Show us how it’s done. Enlist in the Ukraine army and single handed take back Crimea. Live stream your successes as you personally make the world safe for Ukraine. Then go to China and do the same. The only thing stopping you is, well, you.

          There is a term for people like you, but I can’t use it here. I have enough problems getting some of my posts past moderation. So let’s settle for this one. Keyboard commando.

    • If it wasn’t the right move to defend South Vietnam, why is it the right move to defend Ukraine? If it wasn’t the right move to defend Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq why is it now all of a sudden the right move to defend this money laundering despicable country?

    • I appreciate your effort to justify your position based on facts. It would be sound if that was all to be considered. However:

      1. Putin and Russia have thousands of nuclear weapons – more than we do. Do we move forward to smash Putin without thinking about the nukes?

      2. As I note above – Ukraine is not a western democracy. Ukraine is a cesspool of corruption adjacent to Russia and thousands of miles away from the United States. Are these really the folks you want to risk humanity for?

      3. Is regime change in Russia your goal? How does that work exactly? What makes the US best qualified to determine the leadership of another country?

  23. Conservatives did not have a problem with President Reagan spending huge amounts of borrowed money to restore Democracy to Eastern Europe. The anonymous trolls in MRAK must be Russian Bots

    • Because there was a fiscal return on investment with the Reagan spending.
      There is none from this. It is money tossed into a big black hole, never to be seen again. (Well except through political donations via a cryptocurrency exchange, but that is a different story.)

    • No and be thankful that Reagan did that. He bankrupt Russia and with his Star wars initiative, put them out of business because of their lack of technology. Doing that is way different than throwing money today down a black hole in Ukraine with the likes of Biden and others scooping up falling money left and right. It’s not so much that we’re for Russia, but more closely to being anti-Ukraine president and mob, and anti-us president and his lying and thieving ways.

    • Reagan’s stated goal never was to bring democracy to any part of Europe. It was to strengthen a military weakened after Vietnam and Carter.

      Any democracy which broke out was a happy accident to breaking the Soviets.

      It’s easy to tell when you are on shaky ground and know it. You start throwing around the “anonymous trolls” bit.

  24. It would have been better to gather all the money in a big pile and burn it. It would have at least warmed someone for a time. All that money and all that consequent killing. Never get involved in someone else’s millennia long civil war.

    The nation state and its terrible and destructive monopoly on mass violence. Evil warmongers all. May God strike them down. There is a better way and it does not involve the nation state. I hope we get there soon.

  26. Pity the US (P)resident left all those cool toys behind in Afghanistan, I’m sure Zelensky would liked first dibs.

  27. 113 billion dollars in just one year! How many more hundreds of billions have been wasted since the corrupt Obama/Biden administration engineered a coup in 2014 and installed a puppet government in Ukraine and commenced one of the biggest money laundering rackets in the world. We’ve probably spent almost a trillion dollars since then on their imbecilic regime change plan. If you support the war in Ukraine than you are an Obama stooge – as simple as that!

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