As the House reconvenes after its Easter break on Tuesday, embattled House Speaker Mike Johnson has vowed to cajole recalcitrant Republicans into finally pushing through a critical and long-delayed aid package for Ukraine.
Johnson faces stiff opposition, if not open rebellion, from the right-flank of his own party, where extreme MAGA isolationists like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have threatened to oust him if he pushes for more aid for Kyiv.
Johnson faces stiff opposition, if not open rebellion, from the right-flank of his own party.
In February, Trump posted that the U.S. should only provide foreign aid as a “loan.” He then came out against a foreign package that would have provided for both Israel and Ukraine. Ally Taylor Greene is just picking up his baton. But such chaotic isolationism is short-sighted and wrong-headed. Ukraine is doing the U.S. and the world an essential service by keeping its Russian invader in check. The geopolitical stakes are historically high, as Taylor Greene would no doubt realize if she bothered opening a history book or taking a quick glance at a European map.
Ukraine is an essential bulwark against Moscow’s imperial, expansionist ambitions. Nuclear weapons aside, Moscow remains a resource-rich global backwater. But the invasion of Ukraine has once again revealed Russia to be an aspiring empire aggressively thirsting for international recognition. And that’s why Ukraine must not fail, lest Russia push for even more gains in Moldova, or the Baltic states, or perhaps even Poland.
Support for Ukraine has remained strong in Europe, with nations digging deep into their armories. But here in the United States, Trump’s political resurgence, with his seeming affinity for strongmen, has thrown our own continued backing into question, and our military resupply efforts into chaos. President Ronald Reagan must be turning over in his grave.
What’s even more tragic is that from a military standpoint, the return on the Pentagon’s investment has been relatively high; this is especially true when you factor in the many trillions of dollars the U.S. has spent over the past 70 years to maintain a military edge over Moscow. With our monetary help, Ukraine continues to courageously fend off its much larger and more heavily armed eastern invader.
Case in point: Russian commanders worked hard to deliver Putin the recent seizure of Adviivka. Perhaps Putin was trying to give voters at home a victory ahead of his sham re-election in mid-March. But the win appears to have been more symbolic than strategic. Russian military blogger Andrei Morozov reported heavy Russian losses in the city. And the victory hasn’t yet translated into much forward progress elsewhere, with The New York Times reporting a return to the “inconclusive back-and-forth battles that have characterized much of the war’s front line combat this past year.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine claims it has sunk or disabled a third of the vaunted Black Sea Fleet, the pride of the Russian Navy since 1783. Its heralded flagship, the Moskwa, named in honor of the Russian capital, was sunk in April 2022. The fleet’s historic headquarters in Sevastopol was struck by missiles in 2023. At the end of March, Ukraine said it hit two more naval vessels, which will now require costly and time-consuming repairs. And many of the ones that remain afloat have been pulled back further from the fight to prevent further losses. A frustrated Putin recently sacked the fleet’s top admiral.
Russia’s air assault has also been hampered by heavy losses. For instance, Kyiv claims it shot down two Beriev A-50s this year. Russia only has a handful of these flying command-control centers operational, which cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Similarly pricey fourth-generation fighter jets like the Su-34 have been targeted by what the Ukraine army claims to be a very successful air campaign. (As like many of these battlefield claims, U.S. officials have been unable to verify specifics.) Ramped-up sanctions may be hampering their replacement. To that end, Ukraine claims Russia has lost over 300 aircraft so far in this campaign, to say nothing of the even more expensive radar installations, anti-aircraft batteries, missile systems and jamming stations the Ukrainians have targeted.
The large-scale loss of such high-value assets is hurting Russia badly. Putin can (perhaps) afford to lose conscripts that he’s pulled from some Siberian penal colony. He can shrug off the destroyed surplus tanks he’s taken out of mothballs. But he doesn’t have the resources to rapidly replace his high-end hardware. And that’s presumably been the Pentagon’s calculus all along: That the cost of each donated Javelin anti-tank rocket, or HIMARS shell, or Patriot missile pales in comparison to the more expensive Russian target it destroys. This is a numbers game.
Putin is almost certain to use the recent ISIS terror attack in Moscow to cynically ramp up public support for his disastrous war.
And speaking of numbers, the Kremlin derives most of its income from energy exports. And Ukraine’s drone attacks against Russian oil refineries and oil depots are becoming a real headache. Putin issued a six-month ban on gasoline exports starting on March 1, worried that domestic prices at the pump could increase as a result of Ukraine’s sabotage campaign.
The GOP’s old guard, many of whom are former Cold Warriors, know what’s happening here. Biden’s strategy is straight out of the Reagan playbook, after all. Let’s hope party elders can impress upon their Trump-enthralled colleagues that the GOP’s newfound isolationist zeal is misplaced. Plus, a bonus of continued aid is the creation of highly paid manufacturing jobs in many of their districts to replenish military equipment sent to Ukraine.
Time is in short supply. Putin is almost certain to use the recent ISIS terror attack in Moscow to cynically ramp up public support for his disastrous war, betting that Trump wins in November and pulls the plug on American assistance. In the meantime, Congress can still try to stymie the Russian autocrat’s brutal ambitions. But for that to happen, the GOP’s grown-ups must prevail.
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