Is it true that the West spent more than $150 billion to help Ukraine, while allocating about $60 billion to the poorest countries?

In his February address to the Federal Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin shared comparative statistics of financial assistance to some states from Western powers. We checked whether these figures correspond to reality.

February 21, 2023 Russian President Vladimir Putin appealed to the Federal Assembly with an annual message, which moved since last year due to the “high dynamics of events.” Speech lasting 1 hour 45 minutes (second indicator in the history of these performances), caused a wide public response.

In one of the episodes of his speech, Putin stated: “We protect people’s lives, our home. And the goal of the West is unlimited power. He has already spent more than $150 billion on aiding and arming the Kyiv regime. For comparison: according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the G7 countries allocated about $60 billion to help the world’s poorest countries in 2020–2021. It’s clear, right? For the war - 150, and for the poorest countries, which are supposedly constantly taken care of, - 60, and even under certain demands for obedience from the countries receiving this money.”

This information was conveyed by leading Russian news publications, in particular TASS, "Nezavisimaya newspaper", "RIA Novosti", RBC, Lenta.ru, "Russian newspaper", Sputnik "Parliamentary newspaper" And "Constantinople" At the same time, the statistics were questioned by the publication “Agency”, who conducted their fact check. Several others also issued a denial. Media.

Let us immediately note that the very idea of ​​such a comparison already contains some incorrectness. "Big seven"(G7) is an informal international club consisting of seven economically most developed countries: Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Canada, USA, France and Japan. Under Western countries in a broad sense usually understand the totality of the United States, European countries, Australia and the remaining members of the G7, in a narrow sense - the United States, Canada and Europe. Also in this context, we can talk about countries from the list of unfriendly states, which officially approved by the government of the Russian Federation. In any of the interpretations, the two sets of countries coincide only partially, and therefore it is not entirely correct to compare their actions. Time ranges raise another question. Two years of assistance to the poorest countries is compared either with the year that has passed since the start of the war in Ukraine (from February 24, 2022), or with the nine years that have passed since the victory Euromaidan.

Soon after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, Western countries began to provide material support to Ukraine. help of very different nature. It can be divided into three types: military, financial and humanitarian. Most often, on the issue of taking into account this information, authoritative world publications refer to the Kiel Institute of World Economics (IfW), which maintains a separate statistics of all types. According to his data, from January 24, 2022 to January 15, 2023, support for Ukraine from the West (including Australia and Japan) in monetary terms amounted to €138 billion (~$146 billion), of which $68 billion came from financial assistance itself, $65 billion from military assistance, and $13 billion from humanitarian assistance. A huge share of this volume comes from the United States.

However, it is important to take into account one detail: these statistics from the Kiel Institute of World Economics also take into account financial obligations, and not just the actual funds received. According to the publication The Financial Times with reference to the same IfW, there is a significant delay in the transfer of financial assistance to Ukraine, due, among other things, to legal delays. In particular, Ukraine has currently received about $18.5 billion less from European structures, and the total debt is about $35 billion.

Thus, in their own way, “Agency", counting only military and financial assistance to Ukraine, which actually reached the addressee, and the speechwriters of the Russian president, apparently also taking into account humanitarian assistance and as yet unfulfilled obligations. Moreover, even without taking into account $13 billion in humanitarian aid from the European Union and European banks for the period from 2014 to 2021 allocated Ukraine in grants and loans worth at least ten billion euros, and coupled with $2.8 billion from the United States in sphere military security for 2014–2020, this amount covers the gap created during the recalculation.

To assess the volume of financial assistance to the world's poorest countries from the G7 countries, let us turn to the very source to which the Russian president refers - data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This structure does have an annual expense column called "Official Development Assistance"(OPR). The latter consists of the provision of material resources by relatively rich OECD member countries to a group of poor countries, or, as indicated on the website, “least developed countries and fragile states.” Most of this help make up grants, less - preferential loans.

If we look at data for 2021, we will see that the G7 countries allocated a total of $142 billion in ODA, which, as the Agency’s fact checkers rightly noted, is significantly higher than the figure announced by Putin. However, let us note that list of all ODA recipients includes 142 countries and territories (most of the states on the planet), including Ukraine. But within it there is a separate group called “Least Developed Countries” of 45 states, mostly African. Official reports for 2020 And 2021 years do not contain separate statistics on assistance to these countries from G7 states. Relevant information can be obtained through a request in the open database OECD. As a result, it turns out that over two years, the least developed countries received about $56 billion in current prices from the G7 countries, including a small percent in the category “Other official flows”, not included in ODA.

Thus, if Vladimir Putin, by the poorest countries in the world, meant the least developed countries (in the terminology of the OECD and UN), then the amount of assistance he named is close to the truth. Let us recall that regarding the first figure, as we found out, there is also a relatively correct interpretation, if such unbalanced comparisons can be considered correct at all.

Cover photo: World Bank Photo Collection / Flickr

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