On Tuesday Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky unexpectedly canceled at the last minute a planned appearance via video link before US Senators mulling an emergency aid package containing over $60 billion for Kiev.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was the one to announce it to reporters: “Zelensky by the way could not make it to — something happened at the last minute — to our briefing,” Schumer said.
With just weeks to go before Ukraine aid stops flowing, and amid a row in Congress which threatens to discontinue the war funding, Ukraine is now saying it will lose the war if it can’t access more US funds and weaponry.
Zelensky’s chief of staff issued the words Tuesday:
If the United States postpones military aid to Ukraine, there is a “big risk” the country could lose its war with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said Tuesday.
Speaking at the U.S. Institute for Peace during a visit to Washington, Yermak said failure by Congress to approve more aid to Ukraine could make it “impossible” to liberate more territory captured by Russia and “give the big risk to lose this war.”
“If the help which (is) now debating in Congress will be just postponed. … It gives the big risk that we can be in same position (where) we’re located now,” said Yermak, speaking in English.
“That is why it is extremely critically important that this support will be voted and will be voted as soon as possible,” he said.
But the reality is that Ukrainian forces were already losing the war, given top US officials have long acknowledged the counteroffensive has stalled and failed, even with all the weapons the US has already poured in.
Thus Yermak’s statements seem more like an early blame-game: Ukraine seems to be saying it will be Washington’s fault when the war is lost and Kiev is forced to finally negotiate and cede territory.
Senate Republicans have tied Biden’s foreign defense funding to tackling the migrant crisis at the southern border, prolonging the Ukraine aid holdup further, and maybe indefinitely.
Interestingly, the Senate forum that Zelensky was to address involved a classified briefing. Likely he realized he was not going to convince anyone, and his ‘star status’ has long since been in decline. At this moment, even the mayor of Kyiv is attacking him, calling Zelensky an “autocrat” and “corrupt” – and saying Ukraine is losing because of this.