ALMOND NGAN / AFP
War in Ukraine: The US will not pass an aid package by the end of the year (Photo of Volodymyr Zelensky and Joe Biden during the Ukrainian President's visit to Washington on December 12, 2023)
INTERNATIONAL – Kiev's Christmas stocking will be empty by the end of the year. In fact, there will be no new American funding for Ukraine in 2023. US Senate leaders noted on Tuesday, December 29, that Congress would end the year without approving the $61 billion amount requested by Kyiv and the White House.
Republican and Democratic negotiators have failed to reach an agreement despite repeated pressure from US President Joe Biden and calls from his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.
Senate leaders Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican Mitch McConnell said they hoped to vote on that aid “early next year.”
“We will run out of resources by the end of the year (…)”
This is another disappointment for the Ukrainian president in a year marked by dashed hopes of a major counteroffensive, increasing pressure from Russia on the front lines and the European Union's failure to provide 50 billion euros in aid.
And the White House has already warned that it will “run out of resources for Ukraine by the end of the year.”
Volodymyr Zelensky personally came to Washington in mid-December – his third trip to the American capital in a year – to try to increase the pressure. The US would “not betray” Ukraine, he hoped at a press conference on Tuesday.
A grade too high for the Republicans
It is also a major snub for Joe Biden, who has made supporting Ukraine and strengthening the Atlantic Alliance two key features of his foreign policy. To illustrate that commitment, the Democratic leader, a candidate for re-election in 2024, even traveled to Kiev in February – the first trip by an American president to a war zone not controlled by the United States.
But nearly two years into a stalled war — and with Congress already releasing more than $110 billion — the question of the continuity of that support “for as long as it lasts” for Ukraine is becoming more and more persistent.
Republicans in particular began to see the bill as too high. And they had made their support for this new package conditional on a drastic tightening of American migration policy. However, negotiations on this explosive issue were not completed in time.
Aware that the sense of urgency in Washington has waned since the war began in 2022, President Biden had asked Congress to match his request for aid to Ukraine with another request of around $14 billion for Israel allies of the United States in the war against Hamas. So far in vain.
See you on January 8th
Since the start of the conflict, the Kremlin has been betting on a decline in Western aid, and any hesitation by Kiev's allies reinforces Russia's belief that its bet will work. However, Congress's failure to pass this envelope does not mean the end of US support for Kiev.
American lawmakers return to school on January 8, and Senate Republican and Democratic leaders have simply stated their intention to validate this framework, which includes a military, humanitarian and macroeconomic component.
Things get complicated in the House of Representatives, which also has to approve these funds. Your new president, Republican Mike Johnson, is not fundamentally against expanding American aid, but claims that it is not sufficiently regulated.
Lack of “appropriate supervision”
“What the Biden administration seems to want is billions of additional dollars without proper oversight, without a real strategy for victory,” he claimed after his interview with Volodymyr Zelensky in mid-December.
The conservative speaker also has to deal with the hard right of his party, with parliamentarians who don't want to send a single cent more to Ukraine.
These elected officials, who are close to former President Donald Trump, fired the last speaker just a few months ago, accusing him, among other things, of making a “secret deal” with Democrats on Ukraine.
During his press conference on Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelensky also warned that a return of Donald Trump to the White House could have a “strong impact” on the war in Ukraine.
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