For months, Ukrainian fighters have been hopelessly outgunned by the Russian invaders in its unprovoked war, forcing them to cede further territory and dimming morale all while US Congress dithered.
Fears of Ukraine losing the war due to weapon shortages began reaching a fever pitch. But on Saturday, the House of Representatives finally overcame the standstill and passed $60.8 billion in desperately needed aid.
With the Senate and President Biden poised to greenlight the package, perhaps now the big question is whether that fresh round of aid is too little too late.
What took so long?
Congress last approved a significant tranche of new aid for Ukraine in December 2022 for roughly $45 billion.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) opposed it at the time, when it came as part of a broader $1.66 trillion spending omnibus, days before Republicans officially retook the chamber.
By August of last year, President Biden reached out to Congress for more assistance to Ukraine — $13 billion for defense and $8 billion for humanitarian cases — something that was merely intended to get Kyiv through until the end of the year.
Needless to say, that didn’t happen.
Growing conservative antipathy toward foreign aid for Ukraine, bitter infighting amongst House Republicans, an overthrow of the speaker, the Israel-Hamas war, and a protracted fight over spending all stood in the way.
“The Ukrainians began demonstrating clear signs of having run low on critical munitions in late 2023, around November, December,” George Barros, who leads the Russia Team at the Institute for the Study of War told The Post.
“The Ukrainians really needed this aid, not today, but they needed it six months ago.”
As Ukrainians struggled on the battlefield, political paralysis and partisanship gripped the US. Johnson was catapulted to the speakership out of the blue — without any experience at the top of the party –and given a terrible hand to play.
He was forced to put out political fires on various legislative fights such as spending and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Johnson opted to tackle those before the thorny issue of Ukraine aid, which divided his party.
“We had a lot of important measures that had to be done and we got to this as quickly as we could. This is an important matter,” Johnson told reporters Saturday when asked if aid came too late.
“I think we did our work here and history will judge it well.”
Is this enough aid for Ukraine?
Top officials seem to think so — at least through the end of the year.
“With the boost that would come from military assistance, both practically and psychologically, Ukrainians are entirely capable of holding their own through 2024 and puncturing Putin’s arrogant view that time is on his side,” CIA Director William Burns told Congress last week.
But if Congress failed to approve the aid, Burns warned there was a “real risk” Ukraine could lose by the end of the year or that Russia would be in a position to “essentially dictate the terms of a political settlement.”
“This was massively needed, but it’s not a silver bullet,” Nicholas Locker, a research associate for the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security cautioned The Post.
Locker explained that 2024 had been widely expected to be a tough year for Ukraine, but that the setbacks on the battlefield — which the delay in aid helped cause — pose considerable obstacles for Ukraine.
This article was originally published by a nypost.com . Read the Original article here. .