Without new Western arms Ukraine is dead in the water. From Scott Ritter at sputnikglobe.com:
The West’s military aid to Kiev has been drying up, sealing the fate of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Scott Ritter, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector, told Sputnik’s New Rules podcast.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s charm offensive has failed, as US members of Congress are fixing to leave for winter break without passing Biden’s $61 billion package for Kiev.
Even though the Democratic-controlled Senate has delayed holiday recess to unlock the aid, the House shows no sign of returning to pass it through the full Congress.
“The day of the West turning over hundreds of tanks, hundreds of armored fighting vehicles, hundreds of artillery pieces is over,” Scott Ritter, a military analyst and former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, told Sputnik. “We just don’t have any left to give. So the best Zelensky can hope for is your penny packets of armor, penny packets of infantry fighting vehicles, some ammunition, and maybe an F-16 or two. He’s going to want a lot of money to continue, to not only sustain the funding of the Ukrainian state, but also to sustain the greasing of Ukrainian corruption, because that’s the only thing that keeps Zelensky in power.”
The US House of Representatives voted in favor of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on December 14. The bill extended the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative through the end of 2026, authorizing $300 million for Kiev in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, as well as the next one. Still, the US media admits that it’s just a drop in the bucket when compared to the $61 billion requested by Biden.
