It's Over.
There's not going to be more US aid for Ukraine this year
It’s over.
No, I don’t mean the Republican nomination fight (though Donald Trump’s victory in New Hampshire last night means that one is over too).
I mean the effort to get significant military and economic assistance for Ukraine agreed by Congress. It’s not going to happen. At least not this year.
How did we get to this state? And what does it mean? For Ukraine? For Europe? And for the United States?
It was only a few months ago that prospect for renewed aid looked good. While Congress failed in September to include new military and economic aid to Ukraine in the continuing resolution funding the government, a consensus to do so seemed to emerge soon after. In mid-October, following the suggestion of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, President Biden submitted to Congress a large supplemental package that requested military and economic assistance for Ukraine, military aid for Israel and Taiwan, humanitarian assistance for the Palestinians, and a multi-billion-dollar request to enhance security at the southern border.
Many saw this as an ingenious way to get the House to vote in favor of the Ukraine aid, support for which among Republican representatives had steadily dwindled over the year. I was one of those people. However, it soon became clear that packaging the items together wouldn’t ease the passage, as McConnell and Biden had hoped, but actually delay any action at all.
Republicans in the Senate and the House insisted that fundamental changes on immigration policy would be needed to address the situation on the border. While a bipartisan group of Senators has sought to negotiate a compromise, they haven’t been able to agree.
That is hardly surprising. Immigration has divided the parties for years, and the gap between Republicans and Democrats has only widened over time. Indeed, the last significant reform effort passed Congress in 1986, when Ronald Reagan (a strong supporter of immigration) was president. Today, the issue is a rallying cry for many Republicans, not least Donald Trump, who launched his first campaign for president in 2015 with strong opposition to immigration. That stance has hardened ever since.
Republicans, especially in the House, have taken note and are unlikely to back any deal that Trump does not endorse. That includes the agreement that is being negotiated in the Senate. As House Speaker Mike Johnson noted in a fundraising letter last week, “My answer is NO. Absolutely NOT,” he said of the pending deal. “This is the hill I’ll die on.”
At the same time, there is no prospect that the House will vote on a stand-alone measure to send additional military aid to Ukraine. A majority of House Republicans is now firmly against sending any additional aid to Ukraine, and Johnson told Biden in their White House meeting last week that he would not put the package up for a vote.
America’s dwindling commitment to Ukraine and the possibility of it re-electing a president who has long made clear his disdain for alliances in general and for NATO in particular, does not bode well for Ukraine or, indeed, for Europe’s overall security.
As a result, prospects for any additional Ukraine assistance look bleak, even assuming the Senate is able to negotiate and pass a deal on the border that included funding for Ukraine. The last best hope would be to tie the package to a must-pass bill—for example, to keep the government open. But no such vote is required before early March. Even, then, it seems highly improbable that congressional Republicans will vote for a package that their presidential nominee opposes.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is the one that will suffer the consequences. It is running out of artillery shells, which are needed to stave off a Russian offensive, especially in the East. The New York Times reported the other day that some Ukrainian frontline units received just a handful of shells every few days. That’s hardly the way to defend against the Russian onslaught, let alone win a war.
Even more worrisome is that Ukraine is running short of air defense missiles, which it needs to defend its cities against an unrelenting barrage of Russian missiles and drones that have attacked civilian infrastructure over the last two months. The rate of successful interceptions by Ukraine has steadily declined—from the 85-90 percent it claimed last year to about 50 percent today. The reason is simple: Ukrainian defenses are running out of air defense missiles to shoot at the incoming waves.
In short, additional military aid is desperately needed. But it doesn’t look like the United States, which has been responsible for providing well over half the military support since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, will be providing anything more. The problem is most acute for basic military needs, like ammunition, artillery shells, and missiles. Until now, the U.S. has provided Ukraine with about 85 percent of all the artillery shells it has fired in the war. Europe is ramping up production, but much too slowly. And while Patriot air defenses have been very effective (and Germany recently agreed to send another system), there just aren’t enough missiles to go around.
There are two glimmers of hope. First, Russia has taken an enormous beating. U.S. intelligence estimated last month that Russia had suffered well over 300,000 casualties, and Ukrainian military intelligence claimed recently that Russia is losing more men each day than it is able to recruit and mobilize (about 1,000 each day). If Ukrainian forces were to dig in along the frontline, focus on defense, and forego ill-advised offensive actions (like trying to cross he Dnieper near Kherson), it is possible it could hold out—at least for the first part of the year, if not till 2025.
Second, while the United States has wavered, Europe has remained unwavering in its support for Ukraine, with Germany leading the effort by committing more than $8 billion this year alone. Britain and France have also announced new aid packages in recent days. And it looks like the European Union will agree to spend €50 billion in economic assistance by February.
The bigger issue isn’t European determination—but European capabilities. Europeans are running out of inventory to ship to Ukraine and its defense production isn’t up to speed. Moreover, as European leaders contemplate the possibility of Donald Trump’s election, which most fear will mean an end to America’s commitment to European security and defense, there is a growing perception that they need to husband their resources for their own security.
In short, America’s dwindling commitment to Ukraine and the possibility of it re-electing a president who has long made clear his disdain for alliances in general and for NATO in particular, does not bode well for Ukraine or, indeed, for Europe’s overall security.