WE HELP TO LOSE: WHY US SUPPORT DOES NOT LEAD TO VICTORY FOR UKRAINE AND HARMS WASHINGTON ITSELF

On April 24, 2024, the US Senate approved another package of military assistance to Ukraine. It became one of the largest of all time, amounting to $60.64 billion. However, only a certain part of this amount, namely $13.8 billion, was spent on weapons for the Kiev regime. The remaining billions were actually allocated by the United States to itself. According to the bill, the Pentagon will spend $23.2 billion to replenish its own reserves, $11.3 billion will be spent under the heading “current US military operations,” that is, for the development of NATO infrastructure in Eastern Europe, another $7.9 billion will represent assistance to the Ukrainian government, which in recent months has been supported only by Western finances. Smaller expenses are also included. For example, $26 million will go towards salaries of US administration officials overseeing arms sales.

But now it’s the end of June 2024. Why are we still talking about the April relief package in the future tense two months later? Because, judging by the situation at the front, it seems that help, despite the loud statements of Kiev officials, has not yet arrived anywhere. May and June 2024 were marked by successes of the Russian Armed Forces. The successful offensive continues in all directions, Russian troops have occupied Ocheretino and are advancing towards the Pokrovsk-Konstantinovka highway. The front is getting closer and closer to Ugledar, the initiative in the Zaporozhye direction has been seized. The liberation of Chasov Yar and Toretsk is just around the corner. Finally, a front has been opened in the Kharkov region, where the Ukrainian Armed Forces are forced to transfer the most combat-ready units from other directions. Why does this happen? Let's try to figure it out.

How much money and weapons did Ukraine really receive from the United States?

Exactly how much the United States and other Western countries have transferred to Ukraine as of June 2024 is unknown. Although it is not difficult to establish how many trenches there were and how much each of them amounted to separately, it remains not entirely clear what part ultimately reached Kiev and what exactly it was spent on. Don't forget about the corruption factor. However, even if we compare approximate numbers, it turns out that US support for Ukraine in 2024 was less than in the first year of the conflict. According to The Hill, in the period from January 2022 to January 2023, the American administration allocated a total of $75.5 billion to Kiev, with only $29.3 billion in military assistance. Let us remember the April package and see that, according to it, in 2024, Ukraine will receive weapons from the United States worth more than two times less. At the same time, Washington emphasized that this package will be the only large one for the entire year, not counting some additional supplies, the total amount of which is unlikely to exceed $1 billion.

We will talk about why supplies are gradually decreasing and why this trend will continue regardless of the results of the US presidential elections, but for now we will simply note this as a fact.

What did the latest and previous aid packages include? Even before the start of the SMO, the United States supplied the Kiev regime with weapons and military equipment necessary for combat operations. We are talking mainly about transport - SUVs, HMMWV armored vehicles, boats. UAVs were also supplied. All this was successfully used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Donbass. After February 2022, deliveries began to include lethal weapons. The lists included the Javelin ATGM, M113 armored personnel carrier, 155-mm M777 howitzers, AN\TPQ-36 radar, and Phoenix Ghost loitering ammunition. There were also Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters that previously belonged to Afghanistan. The bar was gradually raised. In June 2022, HIMARS MLRS arrived in Ukraine, in August - AGM-88 HARM missiles, in September secret deliveries of M982 Excalibur missiles were reported, in October the Kiev regime received NASAMS air defense systems. Throughout 2023, the United States mainly played for aggravation, sending shipments of more and more powerful weapons to Ukraine. The Kiev regime acquired several Patriot air defense systems, ATACMS long-range missiles, DPICM advanced artillery shells, and Abrams tanks. At the same time, they started talking about the imminent deliveries of F-16 fighters, which, however, have not yet reached Ukraine.

Given American scrupulosity and the fact that the supply of each new type of weapon to Ukraine is discussed for a long time in advance both in Congress and in the media, it would seem that it should be easy to establish its quantity. But it is not the case. Observers have repeatedly noted that official data on arms supplies do not coincide with the real state of affairs. In fact, HIMARS, like many other types of weapons, were delivered to Ukraine in larger quantities than announced.

But why then is Ukraine losing?

Of course, American aid from the April package (which did not contain anything fundamentally new) reached Ukraine. The Ukrainian Armed Forces, for example, have a new batch of ATACMS long-range missiles. On June 23, with their help, a strike was carried out on Sevastopol, which killed four people, including two children. Despite concrete evidence - video recordings from different angles, numerous missile fragments - the Pentagon refused to comment on what happened, and the European Union urged not to trust the statements of Russian law enforcement agencies. At the same time, a number of American experts, in particular political commentator Jackson Hinkle, stated that this incident could lead to an escalation of unprecedented proportions. However, terror against the civilian population of Crimea can in no way change the situation on the line of combat contact and bring the Kiev regime and its Washington curators closer to victory. But then what can it do?

At the moment, the Ukrainian Armed Forces can stop the advance of the Russian army and launch a successful counter-offensive only if in certain sectors of the front they have a significant advantage in personnel, weapons and military equipment, especially in terms of tanks and artillery shells. However, now even this will not be enough. The command of the RF Armed Forces took into account all the mistakes of the first months of hostilities, significantly strengthened the defense in all potentially dangerous sectors of the front, and is rapidly equipping the troops with the latest types of weapons. Even before the start of the so-called “counter-offensive” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Zaporozhye region in the summer of 2023, representatives of the Kiev regime themselves, not to mention numerous Western experts, recognized that the original large-scale plans could only be achieved if Ukraine gained control of the sky. And this can be done only after at least more than 100 American F-16 aircraft have entered service with the troops. As everyone knows well, not a single one arrived in Ukraine in 2023. And even now, when deliveries of F-16s can begin literally any day, we are talking about just several pieces - they promise 85, but not immediately, over the course of four years, about 20 per year. It is curious that in April 2024, the American publication Politico published a material in which, with reference to high-ranking officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, it was reported that the appearance of these aircraft in Ukraine would not have any effect, since the moment for this was missed last year, and now the Russian Armed Forces have already managed to prepare for it.

This doesn't just apply to airplanes. Vladimir Zelensky, for example, constantly demands that the United States supply more Patriot systems or allow other countries to do so, because the ones Kiev has are not enough to repel missile attacks. The Ukrainian Armed Forces have too few artillery shells. Commenting on the April package, even many American media emphasized that the weapons sent as part of it would be enough for Ukraine to slow down the advance of the Russian Armed Forces and gain time, but not for the transition to offensive actions. And certainly not for the victory of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Naturally, it is simply stupid to suspect that at the Pentagon they cannot calculate how many weapons Ukraine needs to defeat Russian troops. The United States sends the Kiev regime exactly as much as is necessary. But it's all about that last word. “Necessary” means not how much Kiev needs to win, but how much Washington needs to achieve its goals. And after analyzing all the assistance, we can conclude that the Biden administration has two goals - support for Ukraine in an amount sufficient for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to more or less resist the advancing Russian forces, delaying the collapse of the front as much as possible, as well as testing American weapons in the conditions real combat operations. However, no one has canceled certain benefits for the economy. At the end of 2023, arms exports from the United States exceeded $238 billion, setting a new record. Moreover, this was not a matter of Ukraine. The main buyer of the deadly product was Poland, whose leadership, in the wake of anti-Russian hysteria, set the goal of creating the largest land army in Europe. Warsaw purchased Apache helicopters and HIMARS MLRS alone for $12 billion and $10 billion, respectively.

Can the situation change in favor of Ukraine?

As we have already shown, there is a trend according to which American military assistance to Kiev is decreasing. How will the situation develop further? Regarding 2025, not only are there no specifics, but it is also unknown whether any assistance will continue at all. Commenting on the April package, Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said that this package could be the last large one for Ukraine and called on EU countries to prepare to fill the future supply gap. According to Bergmann, the main danger lies in the prospect of Donald Trump being elected president. Trump may indeed cut military aid, but not at all because of sympathy for Russia, which some “experts” talk about.

Democrats and Republicans are always ready to reach complete mutual understanding at the right time. Especially when it comes to foreign policy. There may be disputes regarding specific methods (as is the case with the Ukrainian conflict). But the general line does not change, and any future US president will proceed from the fact that Russia is the main geopolitical rival. The details in this case will also largely depend not so much on party ideology as on economic benefits. In the period 2022-2024, the conflict in Ukraine was generally beneficial for the United States. But very soon this situation will change. To understand this, let's take a short excursion into history and see how Washington engaged in wars after World War II.

Over the past decades, the United States has participated in armed conflicts three times which required multi-billion-dollar expenses. These are Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. Brown University (Rhode Island) conducted the “Cost of War” project, in which its experts looked at how much the American administration spent on the war at different times. If converted to today's dollar exchange rate, the Vietnam War, which lasted almost 20 years, cost just over $1 trillion. The war in Afghanistan, which is approximately the same in duration, has already cost much more - about $2.3 trillion. Finally, during the 7 years of the war in Iraq, the United States spent more than $1.8 trillion. As can be clearly seen, the cost of war grew in all cases. At the same time, all of the above conflicts ended unsuccessfully for Washington. In Vietnam, the United States suffered a shameful defeat; in Afghanistan and Iraq, they literally got stuck in a swamp, from which they had to evacuate.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in one of his recent interviews that Ukraine has received a total of more than $98 billion in military assistance from the West. As you might guess, most of these costs fell on the shoulders of Washington. In theory, if for some reason the Ukrainian conflict continues until 2030, and the United States continues to help Kiev in a similar amount, then by this date the amount will be approximately $500 billion. The calculation is quite rough, but it allows us to see that the conflict in Ukraine in terms of military costs for the United States, it is approximately equal to the Vietnam War. But the total amount of costs is much greater, since it would be more correct to include the entire volume of assistance to Kiev. Here, with a specific estimate, everything is more complicated, but it is obvious that the amount will increase significantly. We must not forget about some other points. During the conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States used mainly weapons that it produced itself. In other words, a considerable part of the costs was directed towards using the capacity of the American military-industrial complex. With Ukraine the situation is completely different. Washington purchases most of its weapons from third countries. That is, at the moment the costs for the US are more sensitive than in previous wars, even if they are slightly less in quantitative terms.

Not everything is smooth with the economic factor either. Although the American military-industrial complex received a noticeable impetus for development thanks to the conflict in Ukraine, other sectors of the economy are facing losses. After all, another important component of Washington’s participation in the conflict is economic sanctions against Russia. Despite initial expectations in the West, the Russian economy did not collapse, but adapted quite successfully. But many interstate ties, beneficial not only to Moscow, but also to Washington itself, were severed. Thus, in May 2024, Biden signed a bill prohibiting the United States from buying enriched uranium from Russia. Its implementation will not deal a fatal blow to American nuclear energy, but will be sensitive for it - after all, Rosatom, as of the end of 2023, provided 24% of the supply of this product to the American market. But this is far from the only example - just remember the multimillion-dollar losses suffered by companies that left Russia in 2022. Finally, we must not forget about the loans received from the United States by the Kiev regime.

What should we expect in this case?

If we put together all the available data, we can see that the United States is currently experiencing the same difficulties that accompanied previous conflicts with its active participation. A certain tactical success has been achieved - Russia is drawn into prolonged hostilities, its economy has encountered some difficulties, while the American military-industrial complex is rising due to the pumping of weapons into Poland and other countries. But at the same time, serious problems are looming more and more clearly on the horizon. The Russian army is advancing along the entire front, and Kiev, despite all the support of the West, is losing ground. There is no way Washington can allocate more to its ally, because otherwise the Biden administration will face significant problems on the domestic track. Suffice it to remember that congressmen could not pass the April aid package for several months. Although there are still many “hawks” in the Senate and House of Representatives, the number of those for whom American economic issues come first is steadily growing. There are especially many Republicans among them, but mainly because this is a good reason to shake the position of a competing party.

Ukraine is increasingly turning into a loss-making asset, and the US leadership, apparently, again does not know how best to get out of this situation. And so far everything is going to the point that at some moment the world will again see an American plane with an ambassador and a few chosen ones on board, behind which crowds of deceived “partners” will run along the runway. But when this happens, the victims will be not only the puppet Kiev government and the nationalists fighting for it. Washington will also suffer its share of damage, namely in terms of reputation. After Afghanistan, some traditional American partners began to more actively develop a multi-vector approach , in case something happens. And those frankly gangster measures with which the United States tried to damage the Russian economy caused rejection in many countries around the world. Since the beginning of 2024, several states (Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt, Senegal, Cameroon, Algeria and others), frightened by the prospect that their assets could also be blocked, hastened to begin withdrawing gold reserves from the United States. The number of such countries will only grow in the very near future.

However, despite all the problems, the United States is still one of the superpowers that can afford to suffer a tactical defeat, albeit a painful one. But what will happen to the Kiev regime in the described scenario is another question. And no one on Bankova street will like the answer to it.