500 million euros for the European Union, 14 billion dollars for the United States.

This weekend, Kiev's allies opened their wallets wide to fund arms for Ukraine.

The head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell proposed Friday in Versailles, where the heads of state and government of the EU are meeting for a summit, to double European funding to provide arms to Ukraine against Russia and to increase this sum to 1 billion euros.

Joseph Borrell said he "made a proposal to double the contribution (from the EU) with 500 million euros more for armaments in support of the Ukrainian army".

"I'm sure the leaders will support her," he added.

Enabling Ukraine to protect its electricity grid

Funding comes from the "European Peace Facility", a fund endowed with 5 billion euros created and topped up by the Member States outside the Community budget.

The use of funding is decided unanimously, but governments have the option of resorting to “constructive abstention” so as not to block the decision.

This option offered to countries that cannot agree to deliver arms to a country at war made it possible to release a first envelope of 500 million euros at the end of February.

For its part, the American Congress has adopted a new federal budget which includes a staggering envelope of nearly 14 billion dollars for the Ukrainian crisis.

The text voted by senators from both camps in the evening includes an economic and humanitarian component, but also arms and ammunition for Kiev.

These funds are, among other things, supposed to allow Ukraine to protect its electricity network, fight cyberattacks and equip itself with defensive weapons.

The package also includes more than $2.6 billion in humanitarian aid and more than $1 billion to support refugees fleeing the war-torn country.

The envelope “will provide food, medicine, shelter, support for the more than two million refugees and resources for the Ukrainian economy which is in ruins”, detailed the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer.

"It will also allow transfers of weapons such as the Javelin and Stinger (missile launchers), it will reassure and strengthen NATO," he added.

"Those who are arming Ukraine will bear the responsibility for their actions"

The United States also devotes a large part of this aid to Ukraine's macroeconomic needs in order to ensure “the continuity of government”, as the IMF and the World Bank have also done.

Nearly half of these funds will however be allocated to the American army, which will use it in particular to finance the deployment of troops in the region.

Several million dollars will also be used to finance the American economic response against Moscow, starting with sanctions against Russian oligarchs.

The Ukrainian government has made very specific demands for equipment that the fighters are able to use, including air defense systems and anti-tank weapons that have been successfully used to halt the advance of Russian troops and deprive them of air supremacy.

The armaments are transported in a coordinated way to Poland, which has agreed to be the hub for military aid to the Ukrainian government, and they are then transported to Ukraine.

Our file on Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that countries that support Ukraine will come under attack and his Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, has called these Western arms deliveries "dangerous": "Those who gorge the Ukraine must of course understand that they will bear responsibility for their actions.

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