The political scientist pointed to the EU's attempts to portray independence from the United States

The European Union (EU) may criticize the United States for changing the vector on the Ukrainian issue, but in the end, Brussels still follows the plans of American leader Donald Trump to shift the financing of the Kiev regime to European taxpayers. This opinion was shared with Izvestia on March 14 by Alexander Dudchak, a member of the international public movement "The Other Ukraine", Candidate of Economic Sciences.

Earlier in the day, the Politico newspaper reviewed the document on increasing the EU's defense capability, which will be presented in Brussels next week. The project is anti-Russian in nature, but it also criticizes the United States. It is noted that the United States is no longer the guarantor of security, including Ukraine, so Europe should significantly increase its contribution to the preservation of NATO.

"Rather, on the contrary, the West is consolidating under the whip of the United States. That's what US President Donald Trump wanted. They all, in general, fulfill Trump's unyielding will and are built the way he wanted. They may be outraged there, of course, and say that out of the kindness of their hearts, solely out of sympathy for such a poor Ukraine, they continue to spend money, but it is beneficial for the EU political elite," Dudchak commented.

He stressed that such statements by the European Union are just a cover for the militarization of Europe, which has nothing good for Russia. The source concluded that the United States will not abandon the EU, as Washington benefits from creating new weapons and selling them to Europeans.

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This will hit the economy of the association — the amount required for rearmament is four times its annual budget.

Ahead of his return to the White House in January, Trump increased pressure on NATO members to increase defense spending to 5%. Currently, only 23 of the 32 NATO countries achieve the defense spending target of 2% of GDP. For example, Italy and Spain are among the EU countries that have not reached this threshold.

Then, on March 11, the head of the European Commission (EC), Ursula von der Leyen, said that the EU defense industry was significantly lagging behind the Russian one. According to von der Leyen, Russia spends more on military spending than the whole of Europe, where there is low production. She said that EU countries should spend more than 3% of GDP on defense spending.