Hindustan Times (Lucknow)

The West steps up for Kyiv. Will it be enough?

Washington has acted to offer Ukraine new help. Additional military support for Ukraine was a matter of debate for months in the United States (US) Congress. In the end, Speaker of the House of Representa­tives Mike Johnson put the matter to a vote, the proposal passed by a margin of 311 to 112, and new American weapons and money are now on their way to Ukraine. The agreed upon plan also provides security spending for Israel and Taiwan, but it’s the nearly $61 billion for Ukraine that will make the biggest near-term difference.

This money will help Ukraine pay for Patriot air defence munitions, artillery ammunition, drones, counter-drone weapons, and missiles that can be fired from fighter planes. It’s the first cash for Ukraine that Congress has authorised since December 2022 and the largest single aid package that Kyiv will have received since the outbreak of war. Some of the weapons systems and ammunition are already reaching the frontlines. The US has helped in other ways too. Even before the aid was approved, the Pentagon had quietly shipped a new long-range missile system to Ukraine, which its troops quickly used against a Russian airfield in Crimea and Russian troops in the Donbas region.

Less talked about is an element of the new package that helps Ukraine and hurts Russia financiall­y. The so-called Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunit­y for Ukrainians Act, embedded in the larger aid package, allows the Biden administra­tion to seize Russian State assets frozen in the US and use them to help Ukraine. Before greenlight­ing it, Biden wants to be sure that Washington’s European and other G7 allies are on board with this plan. If they agree the move is legal under internatio­nal law, this could mean another $5 billion in help for Ukraine that’s drawn directly from Russian central bank assets. The EU, meanwhile, is already reserving windfall profits generated from Russian central bank assets frozen in Europe that could give Ukraine another three billion euros per year.

Ukraine needed this help. Sixteen months of Congressio­nal inaction has left its exhausted forces short of the artillery and air defence ammunition needed to halt Russia’s recent advances along the frontlines and its drone and missile strikes against Ukrainian cities. That shortfall has allowed Russian forces to grab more than 135 square miles of Ukrainian territory over the past four months, including the strategica­lly valuable city of Avdiivka in February. Fears that Russia was preparing a major push for more Ukrainian land this summer raised the spectre, in Kyiv and in Washington, that a big breakthrou­gh could leave Ukraine on the verge of military defeat by the end of this year. This latest surge of US material support makes that much less likely. And if Ukraine can build new fortificat­ions along the frontline and secure the air defence systems it needs to protect its cities and energy infrastruc­ture, despite a shortage of these supplies created by the war in West Asia, it can stabilise their defensive position through 2025.

But while Washington’s bid to close the ammunition gap between Ukraine and Russia can restore the on-theground stalemate establishe­d late last year, it won’t move Ukraine back on offence. That’s because Kyiv has another battlefiel­d problem that its allies can do little to address: Ukraine’s shortage of soldiers. A new law, which President Volodymyr Zelensky signed reluctantl­y earlier the year, has lowered the age of military mobilisati­on from 27 to 25. It also reduces the number of exemptions from service and extends the amount of time soldiers can be ordered to serve. That will help if the new troops can be effectivel­y trained and quickly deployed. But it won’t, by itself, change the game in Ukraine’s favour.

In addition, this is likely the last package Ukraine can expect from Washington until the November presidenti­al election. If Donald Trump wins that election, Kyiv could find itself completely cut off from future help. Even if Biden wins, US public willingnes­s to provide future $60 billion aid packages will be limited. In the meantime, Russia has many more young men it can throw into the battlefiel­d “meat grinder”.

The US aid package provides a lifeline that can keep the Ukrainians in the fight through the end of 2024. That will give Ukraine’s friends in Europe more time to produce and deliver more weapons and ammunition. It can also deal President Zelensky a stronger hand at the bargaining table that finally ends the war.

But it’s unlikely to help Ukraine avoid an eventual partition, one that cedes Russia some illegally taken Ukrainian land in exchange for the European future that most Ukrainians still want. That’s a painful reality after two-plus years of brutal war.