According to researcher Charly Salonius-Pasternak, it is impossible to deduce the true value of aid from public data.
The replacement of the material aid sent to Ukraine will cost Finland almost 30 million euros, according to documents handed over to the BTI by the Ministry of Defense. The Ministry of Defense has concealed information on what material has been decided to hand over to Ukraine in recent decisions.
Leading researcher Charly Salonius-Pasternak The Foreign Policy Institute (Upi) says it is not possible to deduce the true amount of aid from the information now released.
The actual value of material provided by the Defense Forces may be greater or less than its design value. In addition, it has also been possible to hand over computationally completely worthless goods from the Defense Forces. It costs money to dispose of obsolete material, and freshness is not clear from public information.
– It may well be that you always buy ten and give fifty. And that’s a very good deal for the Defense Forces, he says.
Assistance can also be very significant for Ukraine, as it will be used immediately in the war.
Salonius-Pasternak says that the calculated value of the material should have been estimated close to zero if it was desired to cover as much of the content of the consignments as possible. If, on the other hand, the supplementary budget wanted to get as much money as possible for replacement material, the value should have been estimated as high as possible.
According to Salonius-Pasternak, Finland may also have a diplomatic reason to avoid information about aid packages if material purchased from the Soviet Union had been handed over to Ukraine.
“It could be that political sensitivity,” says Salonius-Pasternak.
Four packages
Since February, Finland has decided to release the material four times. The first decision estimates the supplementary budget at EUR 2.9 million, the second EUR 6.6 million, the third EUR 1.6 million and the fourth EUR 18.2 million.
In the first package, Finland delivered protective vests, a composite helmet, two first-aid equipment and a stretcher to Ukraine, but in the second package, the material assistance was already much more volatile. At that time, it was decided to send 2,500 assault rifles, 150,000 assault rifle cartridges, 1,500 lump sums and 70,000 assault rifle packages to Ukraine.
The materials sent in the third and fourth decisions of the Ministry of Defense have been encrypted from the documents.
The Ministry of Defense justifies the withholding of information on the grounds that the volume and nature of the transmissions together are so significant that more detailed information than disclosed could harm the interests of national defense. In addition, Ukraine, other EU countries and NATO countries have argued that the information should be kept confidential for the operational and transport security of the material assistance.