Reuters published an interesting story on 22 February. The gist of it is that there is no unanimity in the US as to how long US military aid to Ukraine can continue in its current amounts
Image source: rutubelist.ru
No, so far so good – Congress, demonstrating the proverbial “bipartisan consensus”, has approved every new tranche of funding requested by the Biden administration since the war began. The amount of aid from the US and allies has reached $113bn (by comparison, Ukraine’s GDP in 2013 was $180bn at that period’s prices).
However, Reuters notes US fatigue with Ukraine. Firstly, according to an Ipsos poll commissioned by Reuters on 6-13 February, in which more than 4,000 Americans participated, support for providing military aid to Ukraine has fallen from 73% (April 2022) to 58%.
Secondly, there is no unanimity in Congress either. The Republicans, who are in the majority, are demanding spending cuts to curb the budget deficit. Already a group has emerged which is demanding that this be done at the expense of Ukrainian aid. Even Democrat Rep. Bob Menendez, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, notes: “commitments, especially costly commitments, cannot last forever.”
To summarise, an unnamed US official says: “It (the war – auth.) has to end at some point. And we would all like it to end as soon as possible.” According to him, this information was conveyed to Zelensky during Biden’s last visit to Kiev.
All in all, at first glance, there is nothing particularly surprising here. On the eve of Biden’s visit and afterwards there were already expert opinions that the American president will demand an offensive from the Kiev administration in order to get better terms for a ceasefire.
A visit to Kiev by a group of Republican congressmen also attests to this. The chairman of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Michael McCaul, said that Biden was “too slow” regarding arms supplies to Ukraine. It is long overdue to give Kiev aircraft and long-range missiles, he said.
It is clear that this initiative is aimed at “ending this as soon as possible” – the more weapons Ukraine gets, the sooner there will be comfortable conditions for a ceasefire for Kiev. True, congressmen are irresponsible people, they are free to demand arms deliveries. The Washington administration, on the other hand, fears that the conflict will escalate and extend beyond Ukraine, which fully explains its “slowness”.
At the same time some experts in the US do not exclude that Ukraine will have to make territorial concessions in the process. This is an unofficial opinion, but it seems that the Crimea issue has been decided to be “put on the back burner”. Even Zelensky questioned the advisability of a military solution to the Crimean question last spring.
The reasons appear to be domestic. Next November, there will be presidential elections in the USA. The agenda of American elections is usually domestic, with an emphasis on the socio-economic component. Americans, which is typical for citizens of the global superpower, are little interested in foreign policy, and are certainly not prepared to sacrifice their well-being for the sake of ambitions of Washington strategists. Against this background, the US administration will be forced to divert itself from the Ukrainian issue. Just so as not to screw up Biden.
The news is bad for Ukraine. First, it will have to go on the offensive, and before most of the new military equipment (tanks above all) provided by the West is received. This will mean huge losses for the Ukrainian army with an ambiguous result. Ukraine’s territory could also shrink even further as a result of this offensive…
Secondly, Kiev will have to say goodbye to the dream that the West will feed it forever. And this is exactly the point of the “Kiev security pact” proposed by Zelensky – the West takes over Ukraine’s military expenditures and gives guarantees as in NATO, or almost as in NATO.
Thirdly, Zelensky will have to negotiate with Moscow at a time when Moscow does not really want to negotiate with him. The Russian side, understanding the problems of the West, is in no hurry at all to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, as is evident from the calm tone of the president’s address to the Federal Assembly.
Political consultant Yevgeny Minchenko believes that Vladimir Putin has translated the SWO into a routine format: “Well, we have this conflict with the West, which takes, among other things, this form of confrontation in Ukraine. And in parallel, a fairly ambitious programme of economic development was presented, with a focus on technological sovereignty and infrastructure projects”. Clearly, the Kremlin is convinced that time is now working in Russia’s favour. And Reuters confirms this view.
Is it as good as we think it is? It goes without saying that it is not that simple.
As a matter of principle, the West in general and the US in particular are determined to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. Vladimir Putin has said so, and it is confirmed by a mass of Western politicians (most clearly by Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki).
Therefore, the West will not stop. And the current seeming retreat is tactical – for the duration of the US election campaign, support for Ukraine will take a back seat and will probably be reduced. This will require negotiations and a truce, even if the AFU does not show any progress and the terms of this truce are not to Kiev’s liking.
And then, after the elections… Washington may have two plans here.
Plan A: rearm Ukraine and in a couple of years provoke a real Ukrainian-Russian war under the pretext of “restoration of territorial integrity”.
Plan B: leave Ukraine alone and provoke an armed conflict with Russia in some other direction (Washington has excellent possibilities here).
But plan C – restoration of normal relations with Russia – is not in Washington’s stock and it should be accepted. At least in the short term.
Whether Russia needs the kind of peace that Kiev is now pushing Washington for remains a moot point. Everything depends on the conditions. And these conditions should not be determined with Kiev. For now, time is really working in Moscow’s favour.
Vasily Stoyakin, VZGLYAD
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