EU Officials Privately Panic Over Prospect of Pouring Billions More Into Ukrainian 'Black Hole’

Despite efforts to put on a brave face publicly and vowing to support Kiev “as long as it takes” in the West’s proxy war against Russia, EU officials admit privately that the crisis is ‘no longer a top priority’ for the day-to-day affairs of bloc countries, and question the rationale for pumping even more cash Ukraine’s way into a seemingly bottomless “black hole.”

That’s according to reporting in a leading EU media outlet citing half a dozen senior EU officials and diplomats on the Ukrainian question.

“Doubts are on the rise,” one official said. “How desperate is the situation on the battlefield? How much more money will we pour into this black hole? Populists across Europe will ride this wave in the coming months,” they added, referring to the collapse of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, the tens of billions of euros in additional aid requested by Brussels, and the election victories of populist anti-war politicians in recent elections in Slovakia and the Netherlands. 

Along with the issue of Ukrainian membership in the EU, the bloc hopes to discuss the matter of some €50 billion ($54 billion US) in additional assistance to Ukraine amid ongoing wrangling in the US Congress about the fate of $61 billion in military assistance to Kiev. But as in the US, officials in Europe have threatened to block the support, with Brussels attempting to entice a hesitant Hungary to change its stance on the issue by unblocking €10 billion in frozen EU funds over long-running rule of law dispute this week.

Budapest is not alone, according to officials, with other bloc members also concerned about the political consequences of offering Kiev more cash even as their own citizens’ needs are left unmet, with the issue particularly prescient ahead of bloc-wide elections to the European Parliament set for next June.