SAO PAULO, SP (FOLHAPRESS) — Since Russia invaded Ukraine, sparking a proxy conflict between Moscow and Washington/European Allies, governments and multilateral organizations have mobilized to respond to one of Europe’s biggest humanitarian emergencies with times of World War II.
By the end of September, according to the UN, more than 13 million Ukrainians had crossed the border to escape the war, of which 7.5 million had taken refuge in European countries.
However, the official narrative of solidarity and benevolent participation hardly obscures traditional political and economic interests in this type of transnational response to clashes that affect many civilians. A reminder from Luisa Mateo, professor of international relations at PUC-SP (Pontifical Catholic University).
It is clear that initiatives such as the EU-approved device allowing Ukrainian refugees to stay in the bloc’s 27 countries for up to three years, with access to education, work and social security (and without the need for a visa) are important. Or British Homes for Ukraine, a similar program but which makes the issuance of a visa a prerequisite for the entry of citizens displaced by the war.
Or the roughly $8 billion (41 billion reais) already donated by USAID, the North American Agency for International Development, to support basic services (notably hospitals, schools, access to electricity, food, and housing). 3 billion dollars (15 billion reais) in August alone.
But these transfers pale in comparison to the contribution of Washington and Brussels to strengthening the response of the Ukrainian military to Russian attacks. The United States alone has pledged to send more than $13.5 billion (73 billion reais) in arms and ammunition since February this year. At least 19 military aid packages have been received in the past 12 months.
“This help [com armas e munições] it fuels the conflict,” says Mateo. “Humanitarian aid ends up as a simple response to public opinion to try to balance the participation of these countries in the war machine.”
Another knot in humanitarian aid, according to the professor, is the distance between the amounts promised by the powers that fund the main UN agencies and what is actually allocated.
“Many countries end up opting for a two-way route [de governo para governo, sem a intermediação de órgãos multilaterais]. This allows, for example, tighter control over the allocation of resources and the involvement of carefully selected private partners, consolidating the aid industry machine,” notes Mateo.
According to the researcher, the donation tap should remain open while the conflict is active, since the theater of war, it is worth remembering, takes place in the backyard of the European Union, and not in some remote latitudes. But the context of the global economic crisis should become an element of pressure on the remittances of new billionaires.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government announced in July that rebuilding the country would cost 750 billion euros. Even if this budget is inflated, it will indeed take several more rounds of packages (in the form of grants, low-interest loans and foreign debt freezes, among other things) to lift the Black Sea country out of the swamp.
Brazil Offers Humble Help Brazilian aid to Ukraine received its main chapter at the start of the conflict, in March of this year. The FAB plane delivered more than 11 tons of food, medicines and water purifiers to Poland, from where the shipments were sent to the border region with a neighboring country.
The shipment was donated by a fast food company. But the main task of the aircraft, in fact, was to return the Brazilians displaced by the war.
Since then, the world’s fourth-largest colony of Ukrainians (after Russia, the US and Canada) has had a limited response to the humanitarian emergency. It is estimated that there are about 500,000 descendants of Ukrainians in Brazil, most of them in Paraná.
The Ukrainian-Brazilian central office, for example, collected about 600,000 reais from folklore shows and coffee producers exporting to the European country, which were donated to the Ukrainian embassy in Brasilia.
According to the president of the organization, lawyer Vitorio Sorotyuk, an agreement was also made with the Paraná government foundation for the arrival of 16 teachers from the troubled country (from fields such as biological sciences, history and pedagogy).
The agreement between the largest children’s hospital in Kyiv and the Latin American hospital Pequeno Príncipe based in Curitiba is also part of the mission’s working group. The idea is to promote the exchange of doctors and the education of pediatric nurses.
There is no summary data on the arrival of Ukrainian refugees in Brazil.
