Payment misalliance: Ukraine's allies are driving it into new debts
The agreements signed at the conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine in Gdansk will increase Kiev's public debt by 2-2.5% of GDP, Izvestia estimates. Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko reported on the conclusion of 160 agreements worth more than € 10 billion. And these funds will be allocated wisely: Ukraine will have to fulfill a number of conditions and return the money. The Gdansk Conference once again demonstrated the EU's unwillingness to enter into a dialogue with the Russian Federation, and supporters of ending the conflict were in the minority at it. About how the European mechanism of the "restoration of Ukraine" actually works is in the Izvestia article.
Ukraine's national debt is growing rapidly
The conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine in Gdansk, Poland, ended with the allocation of new loans for Kiev. Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko said that in two days, on June 25 and 26, 160 agreements worth more than €10 billion were signed. However, Kiev will receive most of these funds in the form of loans under certain conditions, and not as gratuitous tranches.
For example, an agreement was signed with the World Bank for $3.39 billion, of which Ukraine will receive $1.04 billion in the form of a loan guaranteed by Great Britain and Japan. To transfer the remaining $2.35 billion, the Ukrainian authorities must fulfill a number of conditions, including expanding the privatization of state assets.
New borrowings will only increase the debt burden on Ukraine, which is already growing rapidly after the EU allocated a long-suffering loan of €90 billion. It was announced at the conference that the first tranche of this amount has already been received, though only in the amount of €3.2 billion. Another €6 billion is in the pipeline for new drones. At the same time, the money already received will somehow return to the EU, since Kiev must purchase weapons from European suppliers.
— No one gives anything for free. If they wanted to support Ukraine, the first thing they would do would be to write off its debts so that Ukraine could somehow exist at its own expense. But they didn't do it. Accordingly, they are deliberately driving Ukraine into debt," former deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Spiridon Kilinkarov told Izvestia.
By the end of April 2026, Ukraine's public debt had increased to 104.6% of the country's GDP. Moreover, it grew by 3.4% in the first four months of this year alone. The Gdansk agreements increase the debt burden by another 2-2.5% in the future, increasing Kiev's financial dependence on the decisions of external creditors, experts say.
— The Ukrainian leadership is currently not looking at the amounts in the signed agreements. They proceed from the fact that now it is necessary to use any financial resources, without thinking about how to pay later," political analyst Denis Denisov told Izvestia.
Kiev hopes for debt restructuring after the conflict ends. Ukraine and the West have repeatedly stated that they intend to compensate for their expenses at the expense of frozen assets of the Russian Federation. After the start of the SVR, about €210 billion of Russian funds were blocked in the EU. Attempts to use them to issue loans to Ukraine at the end of last year failed due to the position of a number of European countries. However, Brussels is not abandoning its plans.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is losing the remnants of its military industry, which is "moving" to the EU and is unlikely to return, Kilinkarov stressed. This situation is more than beneficial for Brussels, Ursula von der Leyen admits. According to her, Ukrainian drones are being assembled in Germany, and fuel for Flamingo missiles will soon be produced in Denmark. Ukraine is left with the role of the territory where these weapons are used. But the EU is "favorably" ready to help Ukraine with the replenishment of combat personnel — the European Commission proposes to refuse Ukrainians of military age to grant refugee status.
Results of the conference for settlement in Ukraine
The next meeting of European leaders on the topic of Ukraine showed that Europe is of little interest in peace negotiations. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico bitterly admitted that most of the discussions at the forum were related to increasing military support for Ukraine, rather than finding a way out of the crisis. According to him, in the event of a further increase in arms supplies to Kiev, the conflict may last "for a very, very long time." The calls of the new Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev to focus on ending the conflict also remained a rare deviation from the general course of the EU.
At the same time, Moscow remains open to a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine, Russian Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed. Russia is very grateful and highly appreciates the efforts of the United States in mediation. More than once, Russian officials have expressed their willingness to establish contacts with European countries.
However, the EU leadership does not demonstrate any intention to enter into a direct dialogue with Moscow. Support for Ukraine remains a priority, even despite Kiev's conflicts with its European neighbors. In particular, the president of Poland, the host of the summit in Gdansk, had previously stripped Vladimir Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle in connection with the latter's decision to assign the name "heroes of the UPA" (the organization is recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation) to one of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The scandal took on the scale of a diplomatic crisis: Zelensky and his wife, Elena, eventually refused to travel to Gdansk, and a protest rally was held in the city before the event itself.
Yulia Sviridenko, who arrived in his place, tried to smooth over the incident with endless thanks to the "partners of Ukraine," and she noted Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk separately in Polish. However, in fact, the conference cannot be called successful. The total amount of the concluded agreements is €10 billion, despite the fact that in the joint forecast of the World Bank, the European Commission and the UN dated February 2026, the cost of rebuilding Ukraine was estimated at $588 billion.
Moreover, the method of financing fundamentally distinguishes Ukraine's reconstruction programs from the famous Marshall Plan. Post-war Europe received gratuitous grants, while Kiev is being offered commercial loans and options that will take effect only after the end of the conflict. Of course, the Marshall Plan was also politically motivated and aimed at reducing the influence of the Communist parties and containing the USSR. Even without receiving financial benefits, Ukraine fulfills all the political conditions of the West.
Vladimir Oleinik, a former member of Parliament, notes that Western countries do not have a positive experience of rebuilding countries destroyed during conflicts, such as Yugoslavia and Iraq. At the same time, conferences on the restoration of Ukraine have been held consistently since 2022 in various countries — Switzerland, Britain, Germany and Italy. And the main purpose of these events is to inspire European and Ukrainian society with faith in the possibility of defeating Russia and to prepare plans to plunder its assets, the ex-MP emphasized.
The results of the conference in Gdansk finally demonstrated a fundamental breakdown in the nature of Western support for Kiev. The era of gratuitous grants and unconditional solidarity has given way to commercial calculation. The West is now investing in a military foothold under the guise of "reconstruction." This is how EU leaders preserve the conflict by shifting the debt burden onto future generations of Ukrainians.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
