Ukraine warns it will lose the war against Russia without US military aid

What was unease at the end of 2023 has now turned into despair. The Ukrainian authorities are becoming more anxious by the day about the delay of a U.S. military aid package worth $60 billion and approved by President Joe Biden. The Republican Party has been blocking the bill in Congress for the past six months, under the influence of Donald Trump. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy emphasized in the German daily Bild Tuesday that without U.S. support, Russia will finish off his country: “He [Putin] will destroy everything. He will kill a lot of people. There will be a lot of blood. There will be many casualties and many losses. We are talking about hundreds of thousands.”

Zelenskiy also cited the progressive lack of ammunition for the missile defense systems protecting Ukrainian cities. The Ukrainian government has specifically requested Washington provide more Patriot missile batteries. “Give us the damn Patriots,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged in an interview with Politico on March 25.

One statistic highlights the worsening situation: the Ukrainian Air Force was on average intercepting 80% of the long-range missiles fired by Russia in 2023; this year, that percentage has fallen to 60%. This is allowing the Kremlin’s forces to systematically destroy the Ukrainian energy system, which has been targeted since March. Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko indicated on April 8 that Russian strikes in recent weeks have damaged 80% of its thermal power plants and more than half of its hydroelectric power plants. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Russian drones and missiles again attacked power substations in the cities of Odesa and Mykolaiv.

Republican hardliners oppose pouring more billions into Ukraine because they believe it is a war that is impossible to win and the funds should be spent on tightening U.S. border controls

Leading Ukrainian media opened their Wednesday editions with more pessimistic news, reported by The Guardian newspaper: British Foreign Secretary David Cameron had dinner on Tuesday with Trump and did not convince the Republican presidential candidate to unblock military assistance for Kyiv. The Guardian added that Cameron did not manage to secure a meeting with Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, who holds the power to bring a vote on the aid package for Ukraine — part of a wider $95 billion bill that also includes military assistance for Israel and Taiwan — to the floor. Johnson gave assurances in early April that the issue could be unblocked this week, but congressional Republicans loyal to Trump have threatened to instigate his impeachment if he brings Biden’s proposal to a vote.

Republican hardliners oppose pouring more billions into Ukraine because they believe it is a war that is impossible to win and the funds should be spent on tightening U.S. border controls. The Ukrainian government has leaked to the media that it is willing to accept the aid in the form of loans, indebting the public coffers despite the fact that, without European Union funding, the Ukrainian state would be bankrupt today.

Russian artillery regiments have access to six times more ammunition than the Ukrainians, and the Kremlin’s air dominance is allowing its planes to bomb frontline positions

The Washington Post reported on April 7 that Trump has a plan to end the war by pressuring Kyiv to grant Russian President Vladimir Putin sovereignty over Crimean and the Donbas region. Zelenskiy responded in Bild, describing Trump’s proposals as a fantasy: “This is about human lives, we can’t make jokes, and we can’t take risks.” Trump’s team denied the veracity of the news, although it would not be an unusual approach: there are more and more voices in the international political and military sphere that now take it for granted the war will end with Ukrainian concessions. Zelenskiy, though, is in no doubt that Putin seeks the disintegration the Ukrainian state and will not stop at conquering 20% of the its territory.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine meanwhile insist on the weakness of their arsenal. Russian artillery regiments have access to six times more ammunition than the Ukrainians, and the Kremlin’s air dominance is allowing its planes to bomb frontline positions. Zelenskiy spoke bluntly about the situation on the front line in an interview with The Washington Post on March 29: “If there is no U.S. support, it means that we have no air defense, no Patriot missiles, no jammers for electronic warfare, no 155-millimeter artillery rounds,” he said. “It means we will go back, retreat, step by step, in small steps.”

The main Ukrainian fear is that Trump will emerge victorious in the U.S. presidential election in November. If U.S. support can no longer be counted on, the alternative is Europe, as the director of the Dialogue Institute for Social and Political Studies, Andrei Miseliuk, wrote on April 5 in Ukrainian media outlet LB: “For the first time since the creation of NATO, Europe must prepare its defense without the 100% secure umbrella of the United States.”

The issue for Ukraine is that it cannot wait until Europe supplants Washington’s military role. “If the [U.S.] Congress does not help Ukraine, Ukraine will lose the war,” Zelenski said in an April 7 speech. “If Ukraine loses this war, other countries will be attacked. This is a fact.”

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