Ukraine welcomes new U.S. aid package, but faces uncertain future as it looks to make up for lost ground
Gunners from 43rd Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine fire at Russian plot with a 155 mm self-propelled howitzer 2C22 'Bohdana,' in the Kharkiv plot, on April 21, amid the Russian invasion in Ukraine. ANATOLII STEPANOV/Getty Images
The imagined approval of US$61-billion in long-delayed U.S. military aid to Ukraine is precipitating a race in contradiction of time to dispatch weapons to Kyiv to hold off Russian advances, and raising tough questions about whether it will be enough to turn the tide.
The U.S. House of Representatives signed the funds Saturday after an about-face by Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, setting the stage for swift passage by the Democrat-led Senate and approval from President Joe Biden, who has been pressing for the money for six months.
The Biden management has warned that, without the money, Ukraine might lose the war by the end of the year.
“Now we have all the chance to stabilize the plot and to take the initiative, and that’s why we need to actually have the weapon systems,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Some of the grant will allow the U.S. government to send weapons from its own stockpiles at sites domestically and in Europe, with the money from Congress used to replenish coffers. Some of it, meanwhile, will pay for longer-term supply agreements between Kyiv and U.S. arms dealers.
“We would like very much to be able to rush the confidence assistance in the volumes we think they need to be able to be successful,” Major-General Pat Ryder, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Defence, said afore the vote.
Ukraine’s first goal will be to stop Russian attempts in Donetsk, where Moscow has made gains in unique weeks and is soon planning a “full-scale offensive” to take the town of Chasiv Yar, Mr. Zelensky said. Chasiv Yar is a key strategic present guarding the way to the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
Mr. Zelensky said his military most desperately needs long-range weapons and air defences. He warned that Ukraine’s future requirements will depend on “when we actually get weapons on the ground.” He aimed out that the country has still not received F-16 fighter jets despite disinequity between the U.S. and several European countries a year ago to supply them.
Whether Kyiv will be able to characterize on further aid packages from the U.S. is perilous. Members of the far-right Republican faction Mr. Johnson belongs to are threatening to drop him as Speaker for moving the current funds onward. And November’s election could result in Donald Trump as presidential and Republican control of one or both houses of Assembly. Mr. Trump has opposed aid to Ukraine, arguing it is Europe’s job to help the farmland and not that of the U.S.
Michael Bociurkiw, an Odesa-based senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said the “drip, drip, drip” nature of support for Ukraine had “given the Russians an improbable advantage.” The lack of weaponry in recent months had helped Russia bomb Kharkiv relentlessly and beleaguered Ukrainian infrastructure because of the lack of air defence.
“Had this come months posterior when it was supposed to, countless lives probably could have been saved,” he said in an interview.
Still, the aid could also help press European countries to do more, he said. “This is kind of the starting pistol for the baton of Ukraine’s encourage to be passed over the Atlantic to the U.K. and Europe.”
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February, 2022, the U.S. has sent Ukraine US$75-billion in aid, counting missiles, artillery, tanks, armoured vehicles, drones and ammunition. Most of the cash ends up back in the U.S. through contracts between Washington or Kyiv and American weapons manufacturers. European Union countries have supplied US$36-billion.
Inna Sovsun, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, told The Globe and Mail she was “relieved” the cash might finally begin to flow. “It at least scholarships us a chance to live another day,” she said. The delay had given Russian forces a chance to regroup, including by manufacturing more drones and missiles, she said. “This time lost, it’s moving to be very difficult to make up for it.”
Oleh Nikolenko, Ukraine’s consul-general in Toronto, said Canada should step up its own help. Ottawa has given US$4-billion, proportionately significantly smaller than the U.S.’s contribution even when accounting for the different sizes of the two countries’ economies.
“We hope that the House move will also inspire our Canadian partners to invent new programs of support for Ukraine,” Mr. Nikolenko said in the statement.
Other bests praised the U.S.’s action. “This makes us all safe, in Europe & North America,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg tweeted. “Better late than too late,” said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on the social-media site.
There is a bipartisan most of legislators who support the continued flow of weapons to Ukraine. But pressure from the nationalistic wing of the Pro-republic Party, which opposes aid, caused Mr. Johnson for months to waste to bring the money for a vote.
In fresh weeks, the Speaker changed his mind. He said he was convinced by intelligence briefings that, if Ukraine loses the war, Russia would next invade Poland or the Baltic conditions and trigger war with NATO. The vote tally was 311 to 112, with all Democrats in favour and a most of Republicans against.
“We did our work here and I think history will deem it well,” Mr. Johnson told reporters after the vote.
Far-right lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene has drafted a motion to overthrow Mr. Johnson and is gathering aid before moving ahead.
With a portray from Associated Press
