If you had an extra $81.3 million available...

Editor's note: ...to you to spend as freely as incompetent governments do, what would you do with that money? Finance a business? Cultivate an organic glyphosate free productive farm? Start a bakery offering the finest sourdough bread west of Europe? Donate $1 million to a local homeless shelter? The amount of money dropped into Ukraine since Russia's SMO to de-Nazify the place (there is currently a mafia turf war going on inside Kiev) beginning in February 2022, shows that Western allies have committed roughly €400+ billion (~$430+ billion) in total military, financial, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, with Europe (EU institutions and member states, plus UK, Norway, and Switzerland) now in the lead at around €165.7 billion (~$180 billion), just ahead of the US at about €130.6 billion (~$140 billion), though the US still edges out Europe specifically in military aid (roughly €65 billion vs. €65.1 billion, essentially tied), while the EU has separately spent an estimated €155 billion on refugee support since 2022, bringing Europe's total "cost" of the war to around €330 billion over 3.5 years, even as overall new aid allocations slowed sharply in 2025 following the halt of U.S. military assistance. In starker terms: It has taken $430 billion to kill well over 2 million human beings (1,660 in the past week) and destroy billions of dollars worth of infrastructure.
________

The Ukraine Money Pit — Estonia's €70 Million Scandal

September 4, 2026 | By Martin Armstrong

Estonia's Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur has resigned after a €70 million [$81.3 million] ammunition deal intended to supply Ukraine blew up into a procurement scandal. Estonia agreed to purchase artillery shells from Datasel, an Italian-registered company owned by India's Neco Defense Munitions, despite the companies having no established history of selling artillery shells. Millions were paid in advance, deliveries ran into problems, Estonia terminated the contracts, and the dispute has now gone to arbitration. This is what happens when government declares everything an emergency and suddenly the normal rules surrounding public money become inconvenient.

Pevkur says he did not negotiate the contracts and had not even read them. His explanation was rather revealing: "The defence minister does not conduct contract negotiations. The defence minister does not count socks and ammunition." He said his responsibility was making the fundamental political decision to support Ukraine. He nevertheless resigned because the National Audit Office's findings raised the question of political responsibility. At least somebody in government still remembers what that phrase means.

The scandal goes directly to the problem with Europe's entire approach to Ukraine. The politicians declare that Ukraine must be supported at any cost, and once you use those words, cost ceases to matter. Due diligence becomes something bureaucrats complain takes too long. Money must be spent immediately because politicians tell everyone that Europe itself will fall if another artillery shell does not reach Ukraine yesterday.

Estonian officials have essentially admitted that extraordinary risks were accepted because of the urgency surrounding Ukraine. One official told reporters that they knew these procurements involved "greater risks than usual" but believed those risks were justified by what was at stake. There is the entire problem in one sentence. When government decides that the political objective is important enough to justify greater financial risk, taxpayers become the insurance policy when something goes wrong.

Estonia's National Audit Office had already raised serious concerns about defense spending and the activities of the Estonian Centre for Defence Investments. The issue is no longer merely whether ammunition arrived. There is now a possibility that Estonia itself could become responsible for tens of millions of euros tied up in the dispute, depending on how the contracts and EU financing are ultimately resolved. The European Commission says it is discussing whether Estonia may have to return the European funds and insists that safeguards exist to protect taxpayers. That is always what government says after the money has already left the building.

The supplier disputes Estonia’s version of events and says it supplied and invoiced €58 million worth of material against €59 million in advance payments. Datasel also rejects allegations that the ammunition failed inspections and argues that regulatory approvals and documentation delays complicated the international supply chain. That dispute will now have to be resolved through arbitration, but it does not change the larger political question of how a procurement carrying this degree of risk was approved in the first place.

Europe has thrown enormous sums into Ukraine under the premise that there is simply no alternative. The European Peace Facility was created before the invasion as an instrument supposedly designed to "preserve peace," yet it has become a major mechanism for financing weapons. You have to appreciate government terminology. They create something called a Peace Facility and then use it to purchase artillery ammunition for a war.

The Ukraine conflict has become another demonstration of how governments operate once fear eliminates fiscal restraint. Nobody is permitted to question the amount because asking where the money went is immediately portrayed as helping Putin. Nobody asks what the endgame is because that supposedly undermines Ukraine. Nobody wants to calculate what European taxpayers have actually committed because the answer becomes politically uncomfortable.

This is precisely how accountability disappears.

Europe has spent years telling its citizens that there is not enough money for pensions, healthcare, infrastructure, farmers, or tax relief. Governments insist they must raise retirement ages because the money is running out. They impose austerity when sovereign debt becomes unsustainable and then lecture ordinary people about living within their means. Yet when politicians want war, suddenly hundreds of billions can materialize.

The money is always there when government wants it. Estonia is particularly interesting because it has been among the most aggressive European supporters of Ukraine relative to the size of its economy. Defense spending has surged since 2022 as the Baltic governments repeatedly warn that Russia could eventually attack NATO territory. That fear has become the political justification for enormous military expenditures throughout Eastern Europe, and now Brussels wants the rest of Europe to follow.

This is how the military-industrial complex expands. You create permanent geopolitical fear, governments announce massive defense budgets, procurement must be accelerated, and taxpayers are told that questioning any expenditure threatens national security. The faster government spends money, the easier it becomes for mistakes, incompetence, favoritism, and outright corruption to hide inside the urgency.

Please go to Armstrong Economics to continue reading.

________

  

The unaccountability and fraud going on related to Ukraine is beyond comprehension:

Fiasco in the Factory: Taxpayers Funded a $533 Million Artillery Plant That Made Nothing

In the current central banking monetary debt based system where central banks create money out of nothing, when governments face a sovereign debt crisis like Japan is, the only option at that point is militarization for war. Japan probably has no choice considering China is eating Japan's lunch:

Japan Accelerates Defense Buildup With Record Budget and Expanded Unmanned Capabilities