Donate one percent of GDP to Ukraine.
It is an investment in security.
This is the English version of a letter to Folkbladet, published 3 August 2024. It was also published by Borås Tidning 1 October.
The kremlin's success in its genocidal war against Ukraine depends on three factors.
The help from the West has been far too small. The aid has not been larger than a few paltry tenths of the countries' GDP. If Ukraine had received more, air defense could have prevented the Kremlin from bombing the theater in Mariupol where hundreds of children and women sought shelter and wrote "CHILDREN" in Russian outside on the sidewalks.
The theatre in Mariupol after it was bombed by muscovite fascists ignoring the word “Children” written outside it.
Photo: Ukrainan World Congress
The help from the West has been far too slow and hesitant. If our aid had been faster and not restricted as to how it is used, the fascist regime in the kremlin would not have been able to bomb so many hospitals, knock out so much of Ukraine's energy production and level so many towns and villages to the ground. Now they can do it from their own territory and have a good laugh about Ukraine not being allowed to use our weapons to knock out the airports inside russia from which the planes take off to bomb children's hospitals.
The dismantling of our defenses since the end of the Cold War has led both to us sending too little of existing weapons and ammunition to Ukraine and to a too low production capacity of our defense industry. That has contributed to our inability to produce enough weapons and ammunition to prevent more Ukrainian women from being gang-raped by russian fascists.
As Lars Calmfors writes in Dagens Nyheter 29/7, the aid decided by the government to Ukraine of 25 billion over three years corresponds to only about 0.35 percent of GDP. This is to be loan-financed. Our national debt amounts to only 16 percent of GDP. The average market interest rate for the national debt is 2.6 percent which at current inflation expectations yield a real interest rate of some 0.5%. Furhtermore, our budget balance is positive. In other words, there are no obstacles to increasing borrowing.
The expenses should not be seen only as costs of helping Ukraine. They should also be seen as investments in future peace and security for our country and our neighbors in the Baltics. If the fascists win against the Ukraine, they move on to the Baltics in their quest to re-establish the russian Empire.