Donald Trump is pulling Ukraine aid numbers out of thin air – or maybe somewhere less polite – but let’s be real, does anyone actually know what’s going on?

The US president keeps saying that the reason Washington wants dibs on Ukrainian natural resources is because “the United States has put up far more aid for Ukraine than any other nation, hundreds of billions of dollars,” and that “we’re in there for about $350 billion. I think that’s a pretty big contribution.” But ABC News’ fact checking says that the figure is actually closer to $182 billion, which also includes the cost of making weapons and “restocking US weapons supplies.” In other words, a lot of that “aid” never even left the US.

That’s the dirty little secret regarding all of this so-called aid for Ukraine. There’s no shortage of casual observers who believe that every dollar of committed foreign aid for Kiev actually went to the country to rescue kittens and kids.

Trump keeps saying he doesn’t know where all the aid even went. Well, join the club. What’s undeniable is that much of it helped paid for old US weaponry to be promptly turned into expensive fireworks by Russian missiles, and for US weapons makers to churn out some shiny new ones to replace them, courtesy of the American taxpayer. Washington might as well have just shipped over a giant stack of cash with a sign that said, “For target practice.”

Anyway, Zelensky is now sounding like a guy who doesn’t think that he should have to pay for this whole movie, now that it turns out that it sucks. So he’s at the ticket booth just as the closing credits are about to roll, arguing with management and haggling over whether any cash that actually made it into Ukrainian hands should actually be considered a debt or just written off as a donation – or “grant.”

“When it is said that Ukraine received $200 billion to support the army during the war – that’s not true. I don’t know where all that money went. Perhaps it’s true on paper with hundreds of different programs – I won’t argue, and we’re immensely grateful for everything. But in reality, we received about $76 billion. It’s significant aid, but it’s not $200 billion,” Zelensky said. ”We should not recognize grants as debts. I agreed with Biden that this is a grant. A grant is not a debt. We’re not going to pay back grants.”

We’re talking about a lot of money. You’d think that someone would’ve at least written down the actual deal on a bar napkin or something.

Zelensky apparently doesn’t have much of a clue where all the cash went. Trump clearly doesn’t know. Maybe check near the $10,000 hammers on the defense procurement lists – or for a new........

© RT.com