Military expert and Defense Express editor-in-chief Oleh Katkov said this on Espreso TV.“If we look at what’s happening now on the defense market, there are no examples of a single country being able to purchase $100 billion worth of weapons. We must understand that this won’t be a situation where the entire amount is given at once and the weapons delivered tomorrow. We need to look at the order of magnitude and compare it with today’s figures. In fact, there are three key aspects to this issue. First — whether the U.S. can actually produce and how much weaponry for $100 billion. For example, under the FMS program, when the U.S. sells heavy weapons to other countries, the annual contract volume roughly equals $100 billion,” Katkov noted.According to him, the total U.S. order portfolio, meaning all current orders, stands at about $860 billion, based on figures from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA). Thus, $100 billion represents 12% of America’s overall order portfolio today.“This means only one thing — if such a mechanism is agreed upon, ‘digesting’ this $100 billion into weapons will take a very long time. We’re talking decades. It can’t be a case where the U.S. tells everyone else to wait — the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel — while production for Ukraine takes several years. In my opinion, this program could realistically be stretched over 20 years. For example, if you order F-35s now, the first aircraft could arrive only by 2035,” the expert explained.In his view, the second aspect of this program is the financing by European partners, since it’s unlikely any single country could immediately provide $100 billion. But if NATO’s European members spread these costs over 20 years, it would be about $5 billion annually, shared among the “willing.”“This is entirely manageable money, not from GDP but from the defense budgets of the willing countries. For example, Germany has now planned to spend €400 billion on armaments by 2041. The German military machine is awakening right now. So, these funds are quite realistic for our European partners,” Katkov concluded.On August 19, the Financial Times revealed details of Ukraine’s proposal to the U.S. on conditions for ending the war with Russia. The plan envisages the purchase of $100 billion worth of U.S. weapons and joint production of drones.