WASHINGTON — Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged the United States to break a deadlock over more than $60 billion in military aid, warning on a visit to Washington that the funding fight only benefits President Vladimir Putin and risks his country’s ability to push back against Russian forces.
“Let me be frank with you, friends — if there’s anyone inspired by unresolved issues on Capitol Hill, it’s just Putin and his sick clique,” Zelenskyy told the National Defense University on Monday, speaking alongside U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. “When the free world hesitates, that’s when dictatorships celebrate.”
The speech was the first stop on a two-day visit that will see Zelenskyy meet Republican lawmakers who have so far refused to budge on approving about $60 billion in aid that Ukraine, as well as President Joe Biden and officials from the International Monetary Fund.
The visit comes during a crucial week in the nearly two-year war, with funds from the U.S. and European Union threatened by internal politics just as Kyiv’s counteroffensive sputters heading into winter.
Biden’s team argues that the money will run out by the end of the year, but there’s so far no sign that the House of Representatives, led by Speaker Mike Johnson, will allow a vote to approve the aid before lawmakers start the winter holiday at the end of the week. That has provoked fresh questions about the reliability of U.S. aid and shaken allied nations in Europe who worry it will give an opening for Russian President Vladimir Putin to press ahead with his campaign.
“If we do not stand up to the Kremlin’s aggression today, if we do not deter other would-be aggressors, we will only invite more aggression, more bloodshed, more chaos,” Austin said at the event with Zelenskyy. “America’s commitments must be honored.”
Ukraine is also facing funding challenges in Europe. Hungary has threatened to block aid when leaders meet later this week and is so far opposed to starting talks on granting Ukraine membership to the EU. Zelenskyy arrived in Washington after stopping Sunday in Buenos Aires, where he appealed to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban during a brief meeting on the sidelines of Argentinian President Javier Milei’s inauguration.
While in Washington, Zelenskyy also met with the head of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva. The fund’s executive board on Monday approved a $900 million disbursement from its broader $15.6 billion aid package, the first time the IMF has lent to a country at war.
“As the IMF has noted repeatedly, timely and predictable external financing is critical in sustaining the hard-earned economic gains,” Georgieva said in a statement, without mentioning any countries.
Many analysts didn’t see the situation as urgent for Ukraine’s ultimate survival, but flagged a failure to act would give Putin an opening militarily and politically.
Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the situation for Ukraine may not be “make or break” this week, given that there could be a smaller assistance package early next year, but pointed to “the broader sense of political momentum” that could see Putin emboldened by a splintering in Washington and other Western capitals.
“It is very much in American interests that this thing gets solved in the month of December,” said John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. If negotiations drag into January or even February, “there will be damage in delay, but not irreparable.”
‘Political Momentum’
Greg Valliere, chief U.S. policy strategist at AGF Investments Inc. said a failure to support Kyiv now risks leaving the U.S. to blame for any defeat. “That could be a devastating story for Washington,” he said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “Vladimir Putin has to be very happy.”
Ukraine isn’t necessarily facing imminent military defeat, Valliere said. But abandoning Ukraine in its hour of need would create an enormous geopolitical risk to the U.S. and its European allies. “The momentum right now is with Russia,” he said.
Facing a troop shortage as a relentless ground war in eastern and southern Ukraine heads into winter, Zelenskyy has said his country’s counteroffensive this year didn’t achieve its goals because allies failed to provide hoped-for weapons.
Biden and his team have repeatedly pushed for the aid to be released, but congressional Republicans say they want more funding for the southern border.
Continued U.S. support has hit a snag as senators struggle to reach a compromise on U.S.-Mexico border policy. Biden proposed almost $106 billion in emergency spending in October, including some $61 billion for a year’s worth of assistance to Ukraine, and $13.6 billion to secure the border.
With the package in limbo in Congress, Biden’s budget director Shalanda Young said on Dec. 4 that the U.S. would run out of resources to assist Ukraine by the end of the calendar year.
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(Tom Keene, Lisa Abramowicz and Kateryna Chursina contributed to this report.)
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©2023 Bloomberg News. Visit at bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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