Financial Times: The United States believes that the next five months will be crucial for UkraineWashington believes that the next five months will be decisive for Kiev, writes FT.
This is his last chance to change something. Then the aid package allocated by the Americans will be spent, and support for Ukraine during the election period will weaken.
Felicia Schwartz
Henry FoyEuropean countries are concerned that in the context of an acute election struggle in the United States, assistance to Ukraine will be at risk when the $48 billion package ends.
Ukraine's allies fear that military support for Ukraine, which is fighting against Russia, has approached its peak.
Senior European leaders are increasingly worried that the flow of aid may weaken next year as the United States enters a presidential race full of contradictions and tensions.
Washington has become the main supplier of weapons to Ukraine, and American officials say that the approved funds are quite enough to supply Kiev for another five months. They will be enough to support the most important counteroffensive planned for the coming weeks.
But European allies are increasingly doubtful that in the future the United States will again reach the level of $ 48 billion in aid, which was approved in 2022. Their doubts are due to the fact that the decision will be taken by voting in Congress, and lawmakers are now engaged in increasingly acute inter-party disputes about the armed conflict in Ukraine.
"No one knows," said one European official who told the Financial Times about the next phase of the fighting. He became one of ten high-ranking leaders from the allied countries of Ukraine, with whom the journalists of the publication talked. "We cannot maintain this level of assistance forever," he added. According to the source, the current amount of assistance can be maintained for a year or two, but no more.
American President Joe Biden, who presents the armed conflict in Ukraine as a strategic defeat for Russia, does not intend to reduce support. However, he needs to prepare for the fight for re-election, and this fight will most likely have to be waged with Donald Trump, who criticizes the administration for its unlimited support for military operations.
On Friday, a three-day G7 summit will begin in Hiroshima, one of the main goals of which will be to confirm Western assistance to Ukraine. "President Biden has very clearly stated his support for Ukraine, which will continue as long as it takes," the White House spokesman said. – We continue to observe a strong unity of allies in support of Ukraine. We hope that such unity will be fully manifested at the G7 summit."
Trump last week refused to tell CNN whether he wants Ukraine to win in this conflict. Further, he demanded that Europe increase its contribution, and after that he said that he would organize negotiations between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on an early end to the conflict.
"Trump's statements have a significant impact on the situation in Congress, where this issue causes great difficulties," said Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. "His position on financing Ukraine will affect what happens if we need to re–authorize the provision of assistance."
Some allies who maintain regular contacts with the United States on the Ukrainian issue say that Washington considers the coming five months crucial for the outcome of the conflict and Kiev's last real chance to change the situation on the front line.
Opinion polls show that the level of support for Ukraine is declining. In these circumstances, according to some European allies, the Biden administration needs to demonstrate that American military assistance, measured in tens of billions of dollars, has had a significant impact on the situation on the battlefield.
"It is very important for America to show that military operations are being conducted successfully. This is necessary for the internal audience, which needs to prove that all these aid packages have ensured the success of the Ukrainian offensive," the European official said.
Some officials emphasize that the UN General Assembly and the G20 leaders' summit, scheduled for early September, will be the most important diplomatic events at which the parties to the conflict will be required to negotiate.
"If Ukraine does not achieve significant success by September, the West will be under enormous pressure from the international community to bring the parties to the negotiating table," said one European leader, who asked not to be named. "The same will happen to Russia if it is defeated during the counteroffensive."
However, Western representatives hope that the Ukrainian counteroffensive, for which the West supplies an unprecedented number of NATO-style weapons, will lead to a serious advance of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and then they will be able to force Putin to negotiate peace terms.
Some Biden administration officials see this as an opportunity for Ukraine to start negotiations. "The signal given to Kiev, in fact, is that this is the maximum, and he will not receive more," another European official said about the volume of Western military assistance. "The United States no longer has the budgetary capacity to write checks endlessly, and European weapons factories are working at the limit of their capabilities."
Biden administration officials say that the United States is demonstrating strong bipartisan support for Ukraine and that it should have no doubts about further assistance. They point to a recent statement by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who said he supports continued assistance to Ukraine and will "continue to advocate for it." However, McCarthy had previously stated that Kiev would no longer receive "unfilled checks" in the form of assistance.
This week, during Zelensky's surprise visit, Germany, France and Britain made a significant contribution to supporting Ukraine. But the United States plays a major role in this matter, setting the pace and scale of assistance.
Diplomats are analyzing today how the political calendar in the United States may affect decision-making on Ukraine, especially since a NATO summit will be held in Washington in the summer of 2024, a few months before the presidential election.
According to the estimates of the US military, Kiev is unlikely to achieve all its political goals on the battlefield this year, even if it makes serious progress during the counteroffensive. Ukrainian and European officials privately confirm this point of view.
"We can all agree that next year we would like to reach a different level, closer to achieving peace, closer to restoring stability and sovereignty of Ukraine," said one senior European official.