you will find a List of Commitments on the part of Japan to the NIS as of
January 1996. Many of the items on the list do not specify country, but
some do, and whenever a country was specified, I added the amount for that
country, without regard to the nature of the aid. Here's what I got, in
millions of dollars, presumably U.S. dollars:
Russia 2,300
Kazakhstan 837
Uzbekistan 445.5
Ukraine 200
Kyrgyzstan 104.5
Moldova 40
Three comments:
(1) On a per capita basis, Ukraine falls at the very bottom of the list.
(2) One reason for the low level of support enjoyed by Ukraine might be
that donor countries view it as a nation run by a gang of thugs who would
simply misuse the funds or steal them. If this is the case, then at the
top of Ukraine's list of priorities should be to rid itself of the gang of
thugs.
(3) If Ukraine continued today to possess, as it once did, the world's
third largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, then stabilizing and modernizing
Ukraine would be among the top priorities of the major nations of the
world. That may be the chief reason that Russia receives disproportionate
aid � that Russia must be respected and modernized because in view of its
vast nuclear arsenal, it would be dangerous not to do so. Thus, Ukraine
giving up its nuclear weapons may have been the single biggest mistake it
made following independence.
Lubomyr Prytulak