JAKE SMITH
Congress’ plan to deliver roughly $60 billion in aid to Ukraine would only provide Kyiv with more several months’ worth of military equipment, The New York Times reported on Monday.
Ukraine is urging the West to quickly pass an aid package as the country’s war against Russia has largely stalled out amid a shortage of weapons, munitions and manpower. The $60.8 billion aid package that the House passed on Saturday would be quickly delivered to the frontlines of the war, although it’s unclear to what degree it will benefit Ukraine in its war against Russia, according to the Times.
Approximately $14 billion of the package would go to Ukraine for the direct purchase of weapons and munitions and funding for training via the Department of Defense’s Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, according to The Wall Street Journal. Over $30 billion would be used to replenish the U.S. weapons stockpiles that can be transferred to Ukraine through the presidential drawdown authority; that funding would also be provided to bolster U.S. military forces throughout Eastern Europe as part of a broader effort to ensure Russia’s hostilities do not expand.
Also included in the bill is approximately $10 billion worth of economic loans that Kyiv would be obligated to pay back in a timeline set by the sitting U.S. president. A caveat in the bill allows the president to forgive this loan in its entirety by January 2026.
The aid would be delivered within days if the bill is signed into law, according to the Times. It would likely be put toward the frontlines of the war in Eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces have successfully gained ground and forced Ukrainian forces to retreat, most recently out of the city of Avdiivka.
Ukrainian soldiers and veterans previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that additional U.S. aid would mean the difference between victory or defeat against Russia.
“Unless we receive that support, we may come to an end,” Yuliia Paievska, a veteran and medic with the Ukrainian Medical Forces Command, previously told the DCNF.
There’s an open question as to whether more military aid would shift the tides of the war in Ukraine’s favor. Though Russia has sustained heavy manpower losses at the cost of gaining little ground at a relatively slow rate, its military-industrial complex is turning at full speed; it has also started to rely more heavily on air-based offensive measures to work in junction with its ground operations, which Ukraine is currently incapable of.
If Ukraine is able to maintain an entrenched position in 2024, it could launch an offensive assault against Russia in 2025 and begin taking back control of seized territory, according to the Times. Ukraine would look to retake Donbas and Crimea, both regions that have been firmly controlled by Russia for roughly a decade.
The bill passed the House on Saturday in a 311-112 vote. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson previously opposed sending more aid to Ukraine until domestic issues, including the ongoing immigration crisis at the southern border, were addressed first; he shifted positions in recent months and backed a plan to pass additional aid separate from border security funding, to the ire of several House Republicans.
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