A year ago, when Washington and much of Europe were still full of optimism that Ukraine was on the verge of ousting Russia from its territory, it seemed unthinkable that the United States would turn its back on the victim of Vladimir V. Putin’s aggression .
Even as Senate Democrats try to salvage an aid package for Ukraine, that possibility remains. And the political moment feels a far cry from 14 months ago, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stood before a joint session of Congress, wearing his signature drab green sweater and enjoying a minutes-long standing ovation.
The U-turn surprised the White House. Even if the Senate manages to advance military aid, there are still many reasons to doubt that the money will arrive, including strong opposition among House Republicans and former President Donald J. Trump’s call for a more isolationist one Attitude.
President Biden’s advisers insist they are not yet looking at other options.
“We are not focused on Plan B,” Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, said Wednesday in Brussels after a NATO meeting with his counterparts. “We are focused on Plan A,” which he said means passing a bipartisan aid package that will allow Ukraine to “effectively defend itself and retake territories currently occupied by Russia.”
But behind the scenes, there is much discussion in Washington and Europe about other options, including seizing more than $300 billion in Russian central bank assets stored in Western countries – a process that is proving to be much more complicated than it first seemed .
Still, American officials acknowledge that there is nothing in sight that could match the power of a new $60 billion congressional budget that could fund increased air defense, more tanks and missiles and a huge influx of munitions.
And they add that the symbolism of America’s withdrawal now could be profound.
European officials, fearful of the possibility that Mr. Trump could be re-elected and make good on his promise to withdraw from NATO, are beginning to worry, at least privately, about the reliability of the United States, no matter who is president.
If Republicans are willing to accede to Mr. Trump’s demand to vote against continuing aid to Ukraine, a senior European diplomat asked in Berlin on Wednesday, then why should they rely on Mr. Biden’s assurance that the United States? States would defend “every inch”? NATO territory? Even some of Mr. Trump’s former national security advisers – those with whom he parted ways long ago – are beginning to say that a failure to fund Ukraine would amount to a major strategic victory for Mr. Putin.
“The United States has a clear choice: arm Ukrainians with the weapons they need to defend themselves, or cut off aid and abandon democratic Ukraine in its fight for national survival against Putin’s aggression “H.R. McMaster, who served for a year as deputy one of Mr. Trump’s four national security advisers, said on Monday. As Congress debated, it noted that “abandoning Kiev would be a gift to the Moscow-Tehran-Beijing-Pyongyang aggressor axis. Allies and partners would lose trust in America if these aggressors were encouraged.”
Strangely, Congress’s threat to derail aid comes just as Europe has committed $54 billion over the next four years to rebuild the country and countries from Norway to Germany are providing new defense aid. “It is remarkable how quickly Europe is moving toward a new and substantial multi-year support program for Ukraine,” said Christoph Trebesch, who leads production of the Ukraine Support Tracker at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in northern Germany. “For the first time, the US is lagging significantly behind European aid,” he said.
“This is not charity; It is in our own security interest,” Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general, said at a news conference with Mr. Sullivan at the alliance’s headquarters on Wednesday. A Russian victory, he added, “is important for European security and for American security.”
But this argument that the West must push back Russia in Ukraine or face the possibility of fighting Russia on NATO territory appears to be losing traction in Congress. And some Republican members of Congress are still accusing Europe of not doing its part, even as recent financial commitments change the equation.
But none of these arguments, officials in the United States and Europe say, can overcome the reality: If the United States ends its financial support for the war, many of the everyday military necessities will disappear – starting with air defense against the almost daily barrage of missiles and drones and other weapons that target urban centers and critical infrastructure such as the power grid. And if the country’s economy collapses, it will unravel a two-year effort to save a fledgling, if deeply flawed, democracy.
Republicans opposing the aid don’t directly argue that logic, although many insist that providing billions to a country with a deep history of corruption invites abuse. Instead, their main argument is that the money should be spent domestically, on the southern border and not in Ukraine’s border areas with Russia. The most vocal opponents, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida, claim that Ukraine aid “puts America last.”
For months, the White House viewed them as a fringe group. But polls show that the percentage of Republican voters who say the United States has spent too much on the country’s defense is increasing rapidly. And now many Republicans have become recalcitrant, aligning their own views with the long-held position of Mr. Trump, who said during the 2016 campaign that he did not want to defend Ukraine. Eight years later, he insists – without giving details – that he will end the war in 24 hours.
The opposition has now become so strong that even Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has repeatedly said funding the war in Ukraine is one of his top priorities, appeared to be backing down.
Meanwhile, Mr. Biden’s advisers are trying to figure out how to pay for the weapons if Congress remains paralyzed. The plan to seize Russian assets has complications. It is not clear whether the reserves could be used to finance air defense and artillery. Even that, administration officials say, could require congressional action – although there are probably more votes in the House and Senate to spend Russia’s money than the United States’ money.
There are also discussions about conducting complex arms swaps, similar to what Japan and South Korea did, where they delivered their artillery shells to the United States, giving Washington more time to give more to Ukraine. (Both countries have said they cannot export directly to a war zone.) Or perhaps let European nations pay for American weapons and ship them to Ukraine.
But Europe is clearly unable to provide much more ammunition itself. During the 30 years of increasingly uneasy peace with Russia, Europe reduced much of its production capacity. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said in a recent speech that “by next month we will have fired over half a million rounds of artillery shells” and “more than a million by the end of the year,” but she conceded that “that is certainly not enough”.
Europe also has little to contribute to drone production. And Germany remains unwilling to give up its most powerful long-range air-launched cruise missile, the Taurus, for fear it could be used deep inside Russia. Germany’s role will certainly be the focus of a meeting between Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Mr Biden at the White House on Friday.
For his part, Mr Sullivan insists the government will prevail if it sticks to its strategy. “Withdrawing from Ukraine at this moment, at this time, would be fundamentally wrong from the perspective of our fundamental national security in the United States and also for our NATO allies,” he said on Wednesday. “And we believe we will continue to win this argument.”
Steven Erlanger contributed reporting from Oslo.
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2024-02-08 00:36:15
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