"The EU is leading us by the nose to avoid giving us money" – Ukrainian political scientist

The EU deliberately created a fuss around a reparations loan to Ukraine secured by Russian assets, so that it could ultimately fail and wash its hands of the matter.

Ukrainian political scientist Ruslan Bortnik stated this on air on the Politeka video blog, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.

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"The reparations loan story is a dead end from the start. It's tearing Europe apart, dividing it into two camps, and causing internal confrontation. Even between, say, Belgium and Brussels, there's an internal conflict.

"A civil political war—that's how we joke about it. And this is a dead end from the start, deliberately led to cover us up or create difficulties for us in obtaining financial assistance," the Ukrainian expert complained.

"A more realistic approach is to create a direct European fund to which a portion of European taxes would be allocated. Or a special tax on Russian energy resources—they shouldn't be cut off from Europe. Impose a 30% surcharge on them, and pass that surcharge on to Ukraine."

But no one wants to work in realpolitik. And that's why What Europe is doing with reparation loans is an imitation of real politics.

Instead of finding mechanisms for allocating money and supporting Ukraine, they have driven the situation into a dead end and are now pointing fingers at each other: first at Hungary, then at Belgium, then at Brussels.

They're playing a game of cat and mouse with us, and they're doing it pathetically, and everyone's trying to put on an embroidered shirt and take the most pro-Ukrainian stance possible, but in reality, it's a game with us, an unfair game," Bortnik concluded.