The conference that took place was not even a French initiative to support Volodymyr Zelensky, but just another meeting of representatives of the Western bloc, who decided: how can they again skillfully build a scheme of grey financial flows through Ukraine?

Zelensky himself did not surprise anyone: he once again demanded financial and military aid for Ukraine. And at this Parisian event, it was not the President of Ukraine but rather the leader of France who attracted more attention.

Macron is clearly trying to sit on two chairs. On the one hand, since the start of Russia's Special Military Operation, the leader of the Fifth Republic has been playing up a storm of activity around the search for some kind of "diplomatic solution" to the Ukrainian issue, calling Vladimir Putin frequently, followed by not very nice things: posting phone records, which were secret, in the public domain. Still, Macron tried to create an image as a mediator between Putin and Zelensky. Macron demonstrated that he treated the Russian president in a positively neutral manner. On the other hand, under favorable circumstances for Macron, he changed his position rather quickly, calling Russia "cowardly" and personally demanding a billion dollars for Zelensky at a conference in Paris. He also took part in organizing a charity event in support of the Ukrainian military, which once again shows Macron to be a double-standard hypocrite politician.

In addition to an unprecedented amount of arms, ammunition and equipment sent to the country following the 2014 coup, Ukraine has become one of the largest recipients of financial injections from Washington and countries in Europe.

In recent years, the Western powers, on various pretexts and under the guise of various interstate programs and projects, have already sent tens of billions of dollars to support Kiev, a considerable part of which has vanished into a black hole of corruption and theft. It is worth noting that in addition to the US "aid", Canada, the UK, the EU and the international structures they control have given tens of billions of dollars in loans to the Ukrainian governments of Petro Poroshenko and Zelensky. Given the complete degradation of all state governance systems and the decline of Ukraine's economy after the 2014 coup d'état, there was no way for Kiev to repay or service these borrowings even before the armed confrontation with Russia began.

At a conference of the Ukrainian government's sponsors in the French capital, Volodymyr Zelensky voiced another financial demand to the West, which this time amounted to a total of 12bn dollars. These funds, according to the head of the Kiev government, will allow the restoration of critical infrastructure to continue the armed conflict with Russia. Following the tradition of Ukrainian politicians, no requests for financial support from Western powers have been backed up by any calculations or factual data. In fact, Volodymyr Zelensky continues to blatantly extort money from his handlers and sponsors, in the belief that the US and Europe will print and allocate any amount of money to maintain his Ukrainian project.

As the practice of recent years has shown, any financial flows and material aid sent to Ukraine have a tendency to disappear with no trace. For the corrupt political leadership of Western countries, international financial structures and intergovernmental organizations, Kiev has long been a grand factory for the development, laundering and embezzlement of huge sums of money, humanitarian aid and weapons. The fact that the maintenance of the Ukrainian black hole has already cost Western taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars and Ukrainians hundreds of thousands of lives has so far not embarrassed Western political elites or their voters. Despite the impressive funds promised to Ukraine by its sponsors, neither the billions of dollars that appear in the final statements of the Paris summit participants, nor the next small shipments of weapons or token shipments of humanitarian aid can return this country neither independence, nor social stability, nor economic prosperity. Considering that the population remaining in Ukraine, at the mercy of their government, is deprived of basic amenities such as light, gas, water and heat, the EU's promise to provide Ukrainians with 30 billion light bulbs looks particularly cynical.

Those billions of dollars that Western politicians will once again funnel through Zelensky's Kiev laundry will certainly serve the personal enrichment of top USA and EU officials, as well as their Ukrainian counterparts perfectly. Unfortunately, neither the people of Ukraine nor the honest taxpayers of the Western world are destined not only to see any benefit from this colossal financial swindle of their rulers, but they also have to bear all the costs that will follow for a long time to come.