Many worldwide have been waiting for the other foot to fall on the conflict in Ukraine. Finally, good old Germans are the ones to plop down the telling jackboot. Making money off the blood-soaked ground of Europe’s most corrupt and (now) pitiful country is what it’s all about. Germany now proposes to open the gate for private investment funds to make debtors out of a crippled nation. And the Russians are the bad guys?
The headline from Euractive reads, “Germany pitches international private investment fund to boost Ukraine recovery.” According to the news, the Germans are lobbying EU partners to set up a private fund to “help” Ukraine back on its feet once hostilities cease. German Development Minister Svenja Schulze told reporters, “Public money won’t be enough; we will also need private investors.” So, the gifts will now be stopped, and the pirates will be set loose on what’s left of Ukraine after America and its allies are done shipping worn-out weapons systems (in need of expensive new replacements) to Kyiv.
The German move is part of a bigger plan dubbed Wiederaufbau der Ukraine (Reconstruction of Ukraine). It includes the possible use of seized Russian billions as guarantees/resources to help private funds flow, as if owning the richest farmland on the planet and a whole culture is not an incentive for George Soros types.
The World Bank estimates Ukraine will need $486 billion to “fix” the country. The philanthropic, all-caring Germans have gone so far as to organize conferences to pitch private investors to join the feeding frenzy (excuse me, reconstruction effort). At the URC in London in the Summer of 2023, some $60 billion was raised. This sum was in addition to the UK’s and the World Bank’s £240 million in bilateral assistance. The list of organizations, shareholders, and businesses set to involve themselves in this is hidden by organizations like the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD), the International Finance Corporation, the US International Development Finance Corporation (USDFC), and British Investment International.
Looking at the IFC (a more profit-oriented arm of the World Bank), the corporation run by the United States (20% of shares) “charges market-based rates for its loans and seeks market returns on its equity investments and investments in debt securities.” The IFC is notorious for helping billionaires become more prominent, using public money to assist the wealthy. The most famous case is the IFC granting financing to a Saudi prince for a five-star hotel in Ghana. As for USDFC, this outfit is a U.S. policy funding slush under the auspices of USAID. Finally, Britain’s developmental finance institution has been accused of “away from financing beneficial international development towards seeking large profits from schemes that enriched CDC’s managers while bringing little or no benefit to the poor.” Huge surprises, huh?
Finally, the Germans are so arrogant and confident they do not even mind highlighting their genuine interests in Ukraine. The Euractive story’s author slipped up and pointed out that:
“The development ministry underlined that few of the roughly 2,000 part German-owned businesses that were active in Ukraine before the war have withdrawn entirely.”
And get this: Germany’s KfW Development Bank will develop a model for rebuilding Ukraine. For those unfamiliar, the KfW Development Bank was created to rebuild what the Allies bombed into nothingness in WW2. Today, KfW is the world’s largest national development bank, owned by the German government.
We can look for billions invested by subsidiary KfW IPEX-Bank, which loans for ports, airports, toll roads, bridges and tunnels, railways, ships, planes, telecommunications, energy, and manufacturing. Finally, who could forget KfW “accidentally” wiring €320 million ($426 million) to Lehman Bros. when everyone scrambled to get their money? Don’t be surprised if Zelensky accidentally receives a deed to a chalet in Berchtesgaden.
What’s about to happen to Ukraine is nothing short of what the Nazis failed to accomplish after Operation Barbarossa commenced. Sorry, but the profiteers must be stopped.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.