With US military aid hostage to right-wing nitwits, Ukraine turns to its European neighbors.
(Originally published Oct. 6 in “What in the World“) The White House is considering using State Dept. grants to let Ukraine keep buying American weapons while the U.S. Congress bickers over renewing existing military aid.
The State Dept. program provides countries with grants or loans to buy U.S. weaponry. It created some controversy earlier this year when it provided loans to Taiwan under this program, despite the fact that the U.S. doesn’t officially recognize Taiwan as a country, but instead considers it part of China.
As Republicans in the House of Representatives argue over who should replace ouster Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who was booted by right-wing Republicans earlier this week, they have yet to pass new military aid for Ukraine. Congress cleared a short-term funding bill last week to avoid a government shutdown but left out of that bill a White House request for $24 billion in additional, emergency military funding.
U.S. aid to Ukraine may be running out as Congress dithers. The Pentagon told Congress this week that Ukraine has almost run through the $3 billion provided for it to buy weapons directly from U.S. defense contractors under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. But there is still roughly $5.4 billion left under the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows the Pentagon to give Ukraine hand-me-downs from its own toy box, then purchase replacements. That’s only enough to get Ukraine through the winter. Maybe. It has resorted to sending Ukraine ammunition seized from Iran that was being sent to rebels in Yemen.
The same right-wing Republicans willing to risk shutting down their government to extort political concessions from the White House are also increasingly vocal in opposition to further military aid to Ukraine. The right-wingnuts argue, correctly for once, that escalating aid to Ukraine increases the risk of pulling the U.S. into a direct war with Russia. Adopting a plank from their Democratic opponents, they say military aid diverts money that could be spent domestically—though it’s difficult to imagine them approving any such domestic programs. The lunatic Republican fringe has thus embraced a sensible concern to justify their demands for broad spending cuts.
The uncertainty over further U.S. aid has sent Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky scurrying to Granada, Spain, to ask European leaders there for more aid to break the stalemate with Russia.
Russia, meanwhile, continues to mount attacks along the front line of the corridor it has created connecting Russia with Crimea. Ukraine said a Russian missile attack Thursday on a village in Kharkiv province killed at least 50 people, many attending a memorial service.