Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Mark Leshkevich
[REGNUM] At the beginning of the SVO, the British gave Volodymyr Zelensky, among other things, a significant moral advance, comparing him to Winston Churchill. “The 44-year-old politician has earned himself a place in history, having demonstrated outstanding leadership qualities and resilience, <…> has become a symbol of the global confrontation between liberal democracies and authoritarianism,” the Financial Times wrote in all seriousness exactly three years ago.
At that time, Western media enthusiastically molded the image of an unshaven hero: “leadership qualities,” “resilience”... At awards ceremonies like the Oscars, they showered him with praise. Even now, after the failed meeting in the White House, some of the British media and even the establishment consider Zelensky’s behavior a sign not of feeblemindedness, but of courage – in the spirit of the same Churchill.
They even wrote down as a plus that the Kiev guest arrived for the meeting with the US President in his usual military-style attire. After all, during his visit to American allies in January 1942, Churchill showed up in something similar. True, that meeting was much more productive.
Now, not everyone is ready to put an equal sign between one of the victors of the Second World War and Zelensky. Even British aristocrats have had a dispute about these figures. Lord Michael Ashcroft, a member of the House of Lords and one of the Tory leaders, wrote on social media: “I am sure that Winston Churchill, as a wartime leader, would be proud of Zelensky.” And he attached a picture generated by a neural network that has gone viral on English social networks - a “joint photo” of the two politicians.
Sir Charles James Spencer Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, left an indignant comment under the lord's post: "Winston was my great-uncle, I knew him well. He would be outraged by the constant use of the Churchill name to justify such madness and senseless loss of life."
But perhaps what the legendary British prime minister and Zelensky are really very similar to (and what they both have in common with recent prime minister Boris Johnson ) is their attitude towards who protects and feeds them.
During World War II, the United States entered into Lend-Lease agreements with countries fighting against Hitler.
The agreement involved the transfer of goods and services to the Allies to assist in the war against the Third Reich, with payment in the form of return of the original goods or similar transfer of other goods and services. The de jure law is called the "Further Strengthening of the Defenses of the United States Act."
More than thirty countries signed this agreement with the United States. Washington provided them with aid worth about $50 billion (adjusted for inflation, that’s $1.08 trillion today). It seemed like a generous gift. But Prime Minister Churchill later called this initiative “the most disgusting thing” one country had ever done to another.
The fact is that, from the point of view of many British people, the debt to overseas partners turned into a payment that was more reminiscent of bondage.
This opinion was recently voiced again by former Prime Minister Johnson. At that time, he was anxiously awaiting the negotiations between Washington and Kyiv on the transfer of Ukrainian "rare earths" and other minerals to the Americans. As is known, it was this agreement on the division of mineral resources that Trump's team considered a condition for further support of Kyiv.
And then Johnson said: "Yes, if you look at it... it (the Trump-Zelensky deal. - Ed.) is robbery, but wasn't Lend-Lease the same in 1941? The Americans simply robbed us. They took our military bases, and we paid for this aid until 2006."
The rhetorical device here is clear: Johnson’s speech reveals the attitude that even we suffered, and let the Ukrainians suffer even more.
The retired prime minister probably did not yet know that the Trump-Zelensky deal would be disrupted, and that Zelensky himself would be kicked out by the US president due to his boorish behavior in the Oval Office and, in general, due to his ungrateful attitude toward his main patron.
Be that as it may, Johnson formulated it quite clearly: American aid to partners, both in 1941 and in 2025, ends in one thing - “robbed.”
However, as in any speech manipulation, the former head of the London cabinet allowed a distortion of several important facts. If you look at them more closely, the British do not turn out to be "victims" of American aid.
But for a better understanding, let's start with the background.
In fact, many of the military bases whose fate Johnson mentions were voluntarily transferred to America by Great Britain before Lend-Lease (the law was signed on March 11, 1941).
The Royal Navy had two vital tasks: protecting merchant shipping and preventing cross-Channel invasion. Both tasks required destroyers. Britain had lost 11 of its 179 destroyers since the start of the war. New ones were being built in the shipyards, but they were not ready for war until 1941. Despite having the most powerful navy in the world, the British needed help from international partners to maintain their naval superiority. On May 15, 1940, Churchill asked US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to “lend you forty or fifty of your old destroyers.”
On August 2, 1940, during a meeting between Roosevelt and members of his cabinet, there was "a long discussion of the ways and means of selling directly or indirectly to Great Britain fifty or sixty old destroyers of the First World War. It was generally agreed, without a single dissenting voice, that the survival of the British Isles in the event of a German attack might depend on the receipt of these destroyers"
On August 11, 1940, future Secretary of State Dean Acheson and other prominent lawyers wrote an article in The New York Times convincing the public that there were no legal obstacles to the deal and that it could be concluded administratively.
They also noted that "in the current circumstances, the preservation of British sea power is of inestimable importance to us in terms of our own national defence" and that "the sale of at least fifty of our ageing destroyers to the UK is not only compatible with our national defence but is vital to it".
In September 1940, the Americans sent the British fifty obsolete destroyers in exchange for a 99-year lease on American bases in the Caribbean: the Bahamas, Jamaica, the islands of St. Lucia, Trinidad, Antigua, and on the coast of South America, in British Guiana (now Guyana ). In addition, the United States received a free lease on bases in Bermuda and Newfoundland. The agreement was nicknamed "Destroyers for Bases."
Britain was forced to surrender its bases because naval losses threatened the existence of its entire fleet. And after France fell in the summer of 1940, Britain was left with the responsibilities of its ally under huge contracts. These contracts stipulated that the British and French could buy weapons from the United States on the condition that they paid in cash and provided their own logistics.
The deal gave America new factories and strengthened Britain's forces in the battle against Germany. But only for a time.
On November 23, 1940, the British ambassador to the United States, Philip Kerr, Marquess of Lothian, arrived at New York airport, where he announced to assembled journalists: "Britain is broke. We want your money."
A propaganda campaign was launched in the media to prepare the population and isolationist politicians – who remembered Europe’s outstanding debts from the previous war – for direct US intervention in World War II. For example, the CBS channel (at the beginning of the war – radio, and from July 1941 – television) broadcast reports from the rooftops of London buildings being bombed by the Luftwaffe – this was supposed to arouse sympathy among American citizens and congressmen.
Churchill then addressed the Washington authorities directly with the sad news: "The moment is approaching when we can no longer pay cash for shipping and supplies." The situation had become critical. Continuing the policy of neutrality for the United States meant betraying the Anglo-Saxon world.
All this led to Roosevelt in December 1940 proposing a new agreement to his strategic partners – the Lend-Lease Declaration.
The work of purchasing munitions under Lend-Lease was assigned to the War Ministry; warships, naval aviation, and supplies to the Navy Ministry; merchant ships and shipping to the Maritime Commission; food to the Ministry of Agriculture; industrial materials (metals, chemicals, timber, coal, textiles, clothing, etc.) to the Purchasing Department of the Ministry of Finance.
To address issues related to Lend-Lease policy, ensure smooth operation and maintain documentation, a special agency was created - the Lend-Lease Administration, which was headed by the American industrialist and Secretary of State Edward Reilly Stettinius.
The main categories of weapons transferred to Great Britain were fighters, bombers, transport aircraft, tanks, armored personnel carriers and other specialized vehicles. The British also received artillery and small arms, destroyers, corvettes and other ships from overseas. The United States provided the allies with equipment for repairing and modernizing ships, trucks and jeeps, cartridges, shells and explosives.
The conditions for repayment of the debt in the Lend-Lease Act were written quite abstractly:
"They shall be such as the President shall deem advantageous, and the advantage to the United States may consist of payment or compensation in kind or property, or of any other direct or indirect advantage which the President shall deem satisfactory."
In other words: we’ll take whatever we want.
The new deal did indeed promise to benefit the United States. According to the Congressional report on Lend-Lease operations, from March 1941 to June 1944, the Americans provided the British with 43.3% of the total Lend-Lease amount, which amounted to more than $28.3 billion at the time, or $510.8 billion today.
For comparison: the Soviet Union received 27.5% of the Lend-Lease “pie”, Africa, the Middle East and the Mediterranean – 14.3%, China, India, Australia and New Zealand – 11.2%.
All funds had to be returned with interest.
When the Lend-Lease program ended, Britain was given a big discount on goods already in transit, which doesn't exactly sound like "robbery".
Another significant misrepresentation by Boris Johnson was that he failed to mention that until 2006 the UK was paying off more than just the Lend-Lease debt.
In 1945, the United Kingdom agreed to borrow $4.34 billion from the United States, of which $3.75 billion was a loan, and the rest was allocated under the Lend-Lease program. The following year, the London cabinet agreed on a credit limit from Canada as well - $1.18 billion. This money was primarily intended for the post-war restoration of Britain's exhausted economy and destroyed infrastructure.
Debt repayment began in 1950. Since then, Britain has paid fifty tranches totaling $7.5 billion to America and $2 billion to Canada at 2% per annum.
Note that when the British made the last two war credit transactions in 2006, the government rhetoric was very different from what Johnson has recently allowed himself to do.
Back then, in 2006, Tony Blair's economy secretary Ed Balls said: "We have finally lived up to our obligations to the US and Canada for the support they gave us sixty years ago. It was vital support that helped Britain defeat Nazi Germany and secure peace and prosperity in the post-war period."
“Important support” and “robbed” are, as they say, two very different things.
Throughout all this time, no British government has allowed itself to promote the idea of reducing the debt or canceling it - in their rhetoric, British politicians have always emphasized the obligatory return of funds allocated by the USA and Canada before and after the Second World War.
So, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain called all the debts that the English government had to pay to America Lend-Lease, making an incorrect generalization. Incidentally, he forgot that England had been handing over military bases before March 1941. Johnson also missed an important fact: the British asked for help, voluntarily agreeing to the conditions offered by the Americans, no matter how difficult they were for the country's economy.
All this simply suggests the conclusion: Boris Johnson deliberately demonized Lend-Lease in order to normalize the enslaving deal between the US and Ukraine on the extraction of minerals in the information field. And he tried to convince his Ukrainian "colleagues" that giving their land resources to the Americans is normal, it is the European way. It can be done even without much gratitude.
But will Ukraine be able to repay its debts to the US, as Great Britain did?
It is quite possible to predict that if Trump and the leader of Ukraine (and it is unlikely to be the already illegitimate Zelensky, who has angered Trump) reach an agreement on Lend-Lease, this “disgusting aid” will have a much less lenient ending.
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