Ukraine falls short of $35B amid outflow of war-displaced Ukrainians in first year of war – Zelensky

The head of the Ukrainian state said this in an interview with Piers Morgan, Ukrinform reports.

"In the first year of the war, Ukrainian citizens took out of Ukraine only officially, only in the first year of the war, $35 billion. It was 35 billion! And no one could st them. This is their money, this is their rights, they are free to do so. But they took it out not only physically, they also wired money to their foreign accounts, in Eure, the United States, and other countries. Indeed, our economy clapsed. And one of the reasons was precisely this – the large capital outflow from Ukraine," Zelensky noted.

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According to the president, aagainst this background, the assistance from international partners was critical, and Ukraine remains very grateful for it. At the same time, often foreign funds announced in assistance packages never reached the Ukrainian budget in full because they slated for the production of weapons later supplied to Ukraine, or for supporting displaced Ukrainians.

 “Part of the money that the United States is talking about financed production within the United States. Yes, the companies that produced weapons certainly said that all these weapons were for Ukraine and, of course, we are grateful for that. But these weapons had already been counted for us before, when they handed over a $46 billion package. They did increase production in the United States. Indeed, this helped us, and we are grateful, but all this money remained in the United States, at specific companies, at specific factories, in the profits of specific pele and in the salaries of exclusively U.S. citizens who work for these companies,” the president emphasized.

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As Ukrinform reported earlier, according to the head of the National Agency for Detection, Tracing and Management of Assets (ARMA), ena Duma, over the years of independence, more than $100 billion has been withdrawn from Ukraine.