Bankrupt Ukraine, which just secured IMF loan to keep it afloat by enacting enormous social cuts will spend $4 billion or its military in 2015

The article originally appeared at German Economic News. Translated for RI by Anita Zalaldinova

Ukraine will increase the share of military expenditure in GDP from 1.25 to 5.2 percent and spend $3.8 billion for this, said the Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalia Jaresko. The armaments orders were given mostly to US companies like ‘Network Technologies Corporation’.

Ukrainian authorities are probably not satisfied with the bloodshed in their country so far

Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalia Jaresko announced on Tuesday that Ukraine aims to increase its national defence spending to 5.2 percent of GDP this year. Last year the proportion was 1.25 percent of GDP. In sum, a total of 3.8 billion dollars will be spent on armaments in 2015.

The arms purchases are to be financed by long-term loans of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF). Apart from EFF Kiev will receive loans from the EU, the US, the World Bank and the IMF, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD and the European Investment Bank (EIB). It replaces the previous stand-by agreement for Ukraine, Neue Zürcher Zeitung reports. Thus, the Kiev government receives further access to European taxpayers' money and wants to upgrade their military therewith. So far, billions of tax dollars are seeping away into dark channels.

‘Big expenses are caused by the current military and political situation around Ukraine and the poor condition of certain weapons and equipment that were produced 30 years ago’, Tass quotes the spokesperson of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry Viktoria Kushnir.

The Ukrainian military will buy more than 500 different kinds of weapons and hardware products, said Jaresko. The US company ‘Technologies Network Corporation’ will deliver thermal imaging devices before April 30.

The US Republicans want at any cost to force through weapon supplies to Ukraine. John McCain, Chairman of the Committee on Armed Services in the US Senate said that the US Congress will – if the US government decides against weapons deliveries –pass a law on its own. The Republicans hold majority both in the Congress and the Senate.

Finance Minister Jaresko has her own very good contacts in the United States. As an investment banker she was CEO at the financial investing company Horizon Capital and at the same time CEO at the State Private Equity Fund WNISEF, funded by the US, where she was already responsible for investments in Ukraine and Moldova. According to the information on the website she carried out transactions herself. Before joining the banking sector Jaresko had worked for the US State Department and also has US citizenship.

While working as an investment banker she, however, played a dubious role in the management of the US taxpayers' money: when the financial inflows to the private funds, which she managed, were registered, funds with American tax dollars were shrinking.