LOS ANGELES.–Warning that Ukraine will be in retreat if he doesn’t get $60 billion in financial and military aid from the United States, 46-year-old Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continued his pressure on U.S. Congress. Zelensky knows there’s growing resistance, at least among conservatives, to continue funding a failed war, where the Russian Federation continues to take more of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, all because Zelensky refuses to take a more reasonable approach with peace talks. Zelensky has insulted 71-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling him a war criminal, demanding he provides Ukraine with reparations and submit in The Hague’s International Criminal Court [ICC] to war crimes. Zelensky’s refusal to face reality has been spurred by 81-year-old President Joe Biden giving him a blank check to defeat the Russian Federation.
Zelensky promised with his 2023 vaunted counteroffensive to drive Russian troops out of Ukraine. When that didn’t happen and Ukraine began to burn through U.S. weapons at a record pace, Zelensky complained that he ran out of cash-and-arms, asking Biden for an additional $60 billion to keep the war effort going. Biden and Zelensky have gaslighted the Western Alliance to think that if they don’t battle the Kremlin, Putin would march his army into Poland or the Balltic States. Without facts, Biden and Zelensky think the Western Alliance should continue to fund the war with the Kremlin, no matter what the losses to Ukraine, but, more importantly, to NATO’s credibility. Zelensky needs more cash to run his bankrupt Kiev government that depends of U.S. government largess to pay executive and civil service salaries-and-pensions, something hidden from the American public.
Biden sells the Ukraine War as a struggle to save democracy in the European Continent against a relentless Russian aggressor. Leading a coalition of the willing, Biden drove the worst inflation in Europe and the United States by a Russian energy boycott. “If here is no U.S. support, it means that we have no air defense, no Patriot missiles, no jammers for electronic warfared, no 155-milimeter artillery rounds,” Zelensky said. Zelensky’s been saying during the over two-year war that he can’t compete without more sophisticated Western weapons, asking more recently for F-16 fighter jets. Putin has said that any F-16s brought into the Ukraine theatre would be shot down by Russian pilots, but also any airbase that supplies Kiev with F-16 would also be fair targets. “I it means we well go back, retreat, step by step, in small steps,” Zelensky said. “We are trying to find some way not to retreat.”
Biden and Zelensky haven’t accepted the fact that the Ukraine War against the Kremlin is counterproductive, causing more problems for Ukraine than going to the peace table to negotiate and acceptable settlement. Zelensky’s conditions of ending the war are entirely unrealistic, forcing him to continue losing sovereign territory. Zelensky acts like it’s the U.S. fault, due to a delay in funding, that Kiev is in retreat on the battlefield. Zelensky can’t have it both ways, calling the shots with Russia and complaining he’s losing the war without U.S. funding. Either Zelensky can afford the war with the Kremlin or not. Telling House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) that $60 billion is vital to Ukraine’s war effort doesn’t reassure U.S. lawmakers that Zelensky knows what he’s doing. If Zelensky can’t afford the war with the Kremlin, he needs to take a different tact and negotiate for peace.
Zelensky admitted that without enough U.S. munitions his war effort must be scaled back with the Russian Federation. Zelensky acts like he’s battling the Kremlin for the U.S. when he knows it’s all about his conditions he’s set out for peace. ‘You have to do with less. How? OF course , to go back. Make the front line shorter. If it breaks, the Russians could go to the big cities,” Zelensky said, warning Biden that he needs the $60 billion in U.S. aid. When it comes to Ukraine’s survival, Zelensky can’t simply ask the U.S. or NATO for more cash. He must consider what’s best for Ukraine, to continue the war or settle the conflict on the battlefield, even if it means compromising with the Kremlin. No military expert thinks Zelensky has the upper hand in the war, watching Russia seize and dig into more Ukrainian territory. Zelensky must decide where to go from here.
Zelensky and Biden can’t decide how to proceed during an Election Year where any perception by voters of failure would harm Biden’s reelection bid. Warning Biden about how the war could go in reverse doesn’t frighten Congress, it only reminds Johnson of how poorly the war has gone for Ukraine. Zelensky made many promises when it comes to the Ukrainian counteroffensive, trying to make progress with Russian forces. Biden won’t admit failure in Ukraine until after the Nov. 5 election, when he’ll be forced to get real with the whopping sums of cash expected by Kiev. If Zelensky thinks he should battle the Kremlin indefinitely, he needs to stop demanding cash from the U.S. and NATO. Ukraine must sacrifice its own resources in order to achieve a lasting peace. Asking for more U.S. or NATO cash-and-weapons doesn’t deal with battlefield losses.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
