Amid criticism of the West’s funding and arming of Kyiv, Ukrainian and American officials have warned that the US funding system for salaries and government spending in Kyiv will likely run out within the next month.
The Pentagon, White House, and Ukrainian officials have issued warnings that the US-led Western war against Russia will fail and Moscow will once more gain territory, according to a report published on Tuesday in the New York-based Wall Street Journal.
According to the WSJ article, the US and other donor countries currently pay the salaries of 150,000 civil servants in Ukraine as well as more than 500,000 teachers and school staff, in addition to a variety of other government expenses like housing and healthcare subsidies.
In September, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that if Congress cut off aid to Kyiv, Ukraine would experience a serious economic and political crisis during their counteroffensive against Russia this fall.
Since the beginning of the Ukrainian War, the main concern of US lawmakers has been the provision of military hardware for Kyiv, including tanks, helicopters, cutting-edge missile systems, and millions of rounds of ammunition. Washington is in a unique position to provide Kyiv with all of these items.
While a government shutdown is imminent, US lawmakers want to cut nearly $20 billion in promised aid to Ukraine made by US President Joe Biden in order to prevent what they called “bankruptcy.”
Senator Rand Paul, who leans libertarianism, wrote on X, “It’s bad policy to bankrupt our own country to send money to Ukraine.”
The UK, which may be Washington and Kyiv’s closest ally, has also claimed to be out of weapons for Ukraine.
In response to Ukraine’s current need for “air defense assets and artillery ammunition,” a senior military official was quoted in UK media on Tuesday as saying that the UK has “run dry on” such supplies.
The military representative was quoted by The Daily Telegraph as saying, “We’ve given away all we can afford.”
The comment came after former UK defense secretary Ben Wallace urged British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to increase funding to Ukraine by more than £2 billion.
When US President Joe Biden gave the go-ahead, the US army declared its readiness to swiftly deliver the long-range missiles promised to Kyiv.
According to Douglas Bush, the US Army’s Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, the Army “has been positioned for this eventuality for a while.”
Bush insisted that the Army is prepared to “go fast” and claimed that the missiles that the US will send to Kyiv have already been identified.
In order to reach Russian targets well beyond the front lines with Ukraine, Biden promised to send Kyiv ATACMS missiles with a 300km maximum range.
