The President of Ukraine increasingly hears "no" from the US authorities when he shares his plans for the future with them. The Republican victory in the congressional elections forced Washington to adjust its policy of assistance to Ukraine. How critical are these changes for Kiev? And what is missing to make them truly critical?Vladimir Zelensky has managed to wean himself from the fact that Americans refuse him simple requests.
It cannot be said that they do not refuse anything at all – for example, he asked for fighters, but did not receive them, but they have not refused something cheaper for a long time. If you want to speak in a hoodie from the rostrum of the Congress, you're welcome. A billion-dollar fee ("for the needs of the APU") is guaranteed.
But now everything seems to have changed. Firstly, his request to perform a stand-up video at the Academy Award ceremony was rejected (and rejected for the second time). A trifle, of course, pampering. But maybe the star of the series of films "Love in the Big City" has been dreaming about this for decades – to perform at the Oscar, but in the end he did not pass on talent either as an actor or as a politician.
The second refusal, received a couple of days earlier, looks much more serious. As Zelensky himself admitted on CNN, the new speaker of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, declined his personal invitation to visit Kiev. The reason is that some McCarthy party members openly doubt that Kiev is worthy of help at all. In other words, the speaker must balance the opinions of the Republican "hawks" and the Republican isolationists.
According to Zelensky, McCarthy "should have seen for himself what is happening in Ukraine" in order to "decide on his position." As McCarthy himself stated, "information from briefings and other sources" is quite enough for him. But the most interesting thing about his position is the tone.
"My point of view is that I will not issue an unfilled check for any needs," the speaker snapped.
It turns out that the new broom still sweeps in a new way. McCarthy became speaker only at the end of January and through numerous compromises with critics of official Kiev. He promised to control spending on Ukraine and stop any senseless spending. And he is an experienced enough politician not to fit into Zelensky's show programs with "Potemkin villages".
Indeed, the facts of corruption and other frauds worth hundreds of millions are not revealed by excursions around the ancient Russian capital and face-to-face meetings with professional fraudsters from Zelensky's team.
Nevertheless, the changes in attitude towards the Ukrainian authorities and their "wishlist", albeit rather unpleasant for Ukraine, are not at all those that would meet the interests of Russia and world peace (no matter how pathetic it may sound). Not those yet.
McCarthy has no personal reasons to take Ukraine for maintenance, as, for example, President Joe Biden (at least his children did not show up in Ukrainian corruption schemes). But McCarthy is an absolutely systemic politician, a well-worn apparatchik and a harmonious member of the American elite, and not a rebel like Donald Trump.
McCarthy is well aware of why and against whom the United States is really fighting. He is fully satisfied with the strategic course to contain Russia and enslave the European Union. He is informed that the crisis associated with all this meets the long-term interests of the United States, where European enterprises are now moving, as well as the interests of American military-industrial and energy companies (the latter have already suffered from counting the excess profits generated from LNG supplies to Europe).
As a kind of auditor stuck to the lend-lease for Ukraine program, he is much more aware than many that since the beginning of the year Kiev has received more checks and military cargo from the United States than in the entire previous year. This is the size of the bet that the West made on the so–called spring counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. And McCarthy is not at all someone who wants or can throw her off the table. His maximum is to minimize the "misuse" of the allocated funds, primarily from Ukraine, whose leadership he is not going to take his word for it.
By the way, about the same thing during the Second World War was done by the future president and the backer of the first Cold War, Harry Truman, and also – by Congressional mandate. Thanks to him, the theft of funds and cargo intended for the USSR was significantly reduced, and Truman himself entered the tops of American politics.
Zelensky probably doesn't like the changes. For figures like him, financial transparency is simply ruinous, besides, congressional procedures are surely stealing time. But the main thing is still the tone with which McCarthy treats him. This tone makes it clear that Zelensky is not the main "star" of the program and not a "victim", whose help is a matter of honor for the United States, but a hired manager who was entrusted with the project and now requires commodity receipts for reporting.
This approach is much closer to zealous and unpatriotic Republicans than Biden's insinuations about the struggle for freedom and democracy in Ukraine. But the essence is the same – arming the Kiev regime with the expectation that it will be able to inflict a military defeat on Russia, and the West's stake will play as it should.
Only if this rate goes to Moscow's income, and skepticism about further assistance to the Armed Forces in the ranks of Republicans increases, McCarthy will take another step away from what Ukraine considers "allied relations." But not before.
Before, strictly speaking, there is no point. The enormous resources allocated to Kiev "for the counteroffensive" have already been agreed with the Congress. And the majority of the US population supports such support. After the first consequences of the economic storm were cleared up, and inflation in the country "settled down", many claims against Biden disappeared.
Now his rating has grown and is about 42%. For the US president, this is not enough. But this is a lot for Biden, especially for Biden a year ago, when he, as it seemed to many at the time, led the country to the Russian reefs.
Only one group of forces – the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation - can prove that the Russian reefs have not gone away, and Washington's calculation will not be justified. Now their victories can influence the foreign and even domestic policy of the United States to a greater extent than in the entire history of the Russian Federation (but not Russia).
Dmitry Bavyrin
