U.S. Air Defense Assistance to Ukraine During the Ukraine Warsaw 2001-2003 Relaunch: Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Biden met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and announced a half a billion dollars of additional assistance to Ukraine — and said there would be new sanctions on Russia — with details to be released in coming days.

Biden has marshalled international support for Ukraine, sending billions of dollars of weapons and economic aid to Kyiv and uniting allies and partners around economic sanctions meant to punish Moscow for the invasion. The United States Congress appropriated more than $110 billion in defense, economic and humanitarian aid last year.

And a second senior administration official provided the following summary of air defense aid provided to Ukraine from the US: “We have transferred more than 1,400 Stinger anti-air systems to Ukraine, as well as air surveillance and multi-mission radars. We enabled our Allies to transfer air defense systems of their own to Ukraine – including Slovakia’s transfer of a critical S-300 system in April. And in August, President Biden announced a new assistance package for Ukraine that included orders for 8 new NASAMS—National Advanced Surface to Air Missile Systems. We will provide Ukraine with what it needs to defend itself.

The US had yet to deliver NASAMS to Ukraine as of late September, according to the Department of Defense. At the time, Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said two systems were expected to be delivered in the next two months, with the remaining six to arrive at an undetermined date.

The general staff of the armed forces said in a Facebook post that on Monday Russia launched 84 cruise missiles at targets across Ukraine.

Putin said that the strikes were in response to acts of terrorism by the Ukrainians. He blames the explosion on the Kerch Bridge on Ukraine’s “special services” and a list of other alleged crimes.

Putin raised the possibility of nuclear weapons being used if his “territorial integrity” of Russia were to be jeopardized in a speech last month. And the Russian president recently announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions in defiance of international law.

The deputy head of Russia’s Security Council has said that he thinks Moscow should dismantle Zelensky’s regime.

John Kirby, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, said Monday that there will likely be additional support packages for Ukraine announced “in the very near future.”

“It’s clear that he’s feeling the pressure both at home and overseas, and how he reacts to that only he can say,” Kirby told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on “Erin Burnett OutFront.”

Biden warned about the danger of Putin having nuclear weapons last week. But multiple US officials have said the comment was not based on any new intelligence about Putin’s intentions or changes in Russia’s nuclear posture.

When President Biden marks the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this week with a speech in Warsaw, he is expected to underscore that the United States is going to back Ukraine as long as it takes.

Cancian’s Great Fear: The Problem of Spending a Lot of Money on the War-Insurrections in the United States

Polls show a growing number of Americans are concerned about how much money has been spent in the war and some Republicans want to curtail the spending.

“My great fear is that there’s going to be some scandal,” said Mark Cancian, an expert in military procurement who has worked both at the Office of Management and Budget and the Pentagon. There is either weapons showing up in the Middle East, someplace that they aren’t supposed to be, or some person is discovered to have diverted funds from the American taxpayers and is sailing around the Mediterranean in a yacht.

So far, there have not been signs that U.S. aid to Ukraine has ended up in the wrong hands. But the war is far from over. The Ukrainians are asking for more support in their fight against Russia. And the long and expensive work of rebuilding after the conflict has yet to begin.

John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said there are bound to be problems when spending that much money.

Sopko, who has reported on failure after failure with aid for Afghanistan, warns that a country can only absorb so much aid before things begin to spill over into the illicit economy.

U.S. Aid to Ukraine’s War Fighters: Problems, Issues, and Concerns on Abelian Defense and Intelligence

“You take a sponge, you put it on your kitchen counter and you fill it with water. The sound of drips, drips, drips. Sopko said that it holds the water. All of a sudden it reaches a point, and then all the water starts draining out from that sponge.

The risks of problems have sparked concern on Capitol Hill. There is concern among Republican and Democrat supporters about maintaining public support for U.S. aid.

The speaker of the house warned that there won’t be a blank check for aid to the Ukraine when the US faces so much debt.

The most recent congressional funding package built in more funding for oversight of the aid, and Republican leaders have asked for more regular updates on checks and balances on the spending.

One report, released last month, found that there’s a “significant risk of misuse and diversion given the volume and speed of assistance” during the war. It also cites a classified Pentagon report that raised concerns that the Defense Department isn’t able to fully monitor the weapons, in part because U.S. troops are not allowed in the country.

Jessica Lewis is the assistant secretary for the State Department’s bureau of political-military affairs.

“We should all be concerned about the possibility of a weapon ending up in someone else’s hands,” Lewis said. “We have to put all of those things in place.”

U.S. inspectors have been to Ukraine and the defense staff has been increased at the Kyiv embassy, she said. The Ukrainian government has signed detailed security agreements about safeguarding the weapons and not transferring them to third parties.

She said it was their responsibility to our own national security. It’s our responsibility to our war fighters and to the American public to make sure that when a weapon is transferred we are doing it right.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/20/1141689717/ukraine-russia-biden-funding

The Ukraine bids for NATO: a lesson learned from Afghanistan, and what they can do to prevent them from failing to join the European Union

There’s a lot of administration offices doing oversight reviews in several departments and agencies. John said that he is concerned about a lack of coordination.

He thinks that the U.S. government is too long in waiting to have a dedicated team for the work. That’s a lesson that should have been learned from Afghanistan, he said, where his office would have been more effective had it been established much earlier in the conflict.

Sopko is concerned about economic aid. The U.S. will give about $50 billion to help the Ukrainian government, money that will help pay the salaries of officials and police officers.

“That was the top worry we had in Afghanistan,” he said. “Because of the salaries we were paying, they weren’t going to the right people or people who weren’t working at all.” So we had ghost civil servants, ghost people in the military, ghost teachers or whatever.”

The country was ranked 115 out of 180 countries by the international anti-malaria organization, Transparency International. The issue has scuttled the country’s bid to join the European Union and kept it out of NATO.

According to Biden just months before the war began, he was complaining that corruption was holding backUkraine from joining the NATO alliance.

“The fact is, they still have to clean up corruption,” Biden said. They have to meet other criteria before they can be in the action plan. And so school’s out on that question.”

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/20/1141689717/ukraine-russia-biden-funding

U.S. Ambassador Volodymr Zelenskyy Left Washington During the Ukrainian Corruptcy Scenario and Its Implications for the Security of Ukraine

President Volodymr Zelenskyy was elected to office on an anti-corruption platform and submitted a bill to close a court which has been criticized for corruption.

“I think that that’s a pretty good example that corruption can be pretty resilient in Ukraine,” said Steven Pifer, a Clinton-era U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. “It took some time… but it finally was shut down. And that was a good thing for Ukraine’s justice system.”

Last month, Zelenskyy fired a group of officials in the corruption scandal. Zelensky spoke in a video address during the scandal about the need for people to understand that things will never return to the lifestyles bureaucrats used to have.

In Washington, many of the calls for more oversight are coming from Republicans and Democrats who support the war effort. They don’t want political leverage for those who would rather cut assistance than give it back.

“We as Democrats — as the White House — I think we should continue to work with these national security Republicans … and their fellow travelers in good faith to not let domestic politics prevent us from staying united behind Ukraine,” said Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass.

It is in Biden’s political interests to work with the Republicans. He’s expected to run for a second term in the 2020 election, but doesn’t want the Ukraine spending scandal to become a campaign issue.

Instead, he secretly left Washington early on Sunday morning. Details of how he got to Ukraine were not immediately available due to security concerns. Biden left the capital. Kyiv has been the target of Russian missile and drone strikes, including as recently as Feb. 10.

Biden said he thought it was important that the U.S. supported Ukraine in the war.

Treasury sanctions against Russian companies and entities during the second year of the Ukrainian War: a top State Department official detailed the latest actions of the Biden administration

The Biden administration will put pressure on Chinese companies believed to be active in evading sanctions that were imposed on them over their involvement in the war in Ukraine.

For weeks, Biden administration officials had been previewing plans to crack down on those helping Moscow work around sanctions to continue its war against Kyiv. Top State Department official Victoria Nuland detailed some of the sanctions evasion efforts Thursday, describing Russia as “importing 1000% more laptops, iPhones, dishwashers from third-countries, not because they need to, you know, work at home on their laptops but so they can cannibalize this machinery to get the advanced chips that we have denied them so that they can make more rockets, etc.”

The Treasury sanctions Friday pertain to those individuals and companies who are connected to sanctions evasion, as well as those who are related to arms trafficking and the proceeds of illegal activity.

She also refused to answer questions about whether the U.S. would levy sanctions on China if it exported weapons to Russia, following U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s remarks on CBS News that Beijing is allegedly considering supplying lethal support to Moscow.

These latest actions by the Treasury Department are among a series of new measures announced by the Biden administration Friday that are meant to strengthen Kyiv and deter those providing support to Moscow as the war enters its second year without signs of abating.

The US State Department imposed sanctions against over 60 people and entities who were linked to Moscow for their support of the Russian Federation in its aggression against Ukraine.

The latest tranche of Treasury Department sanctions target a total of 22 individuals and 83 entities, according to a Treasury Department news release, and were taken in coordination with the Group of 7 nations.

The US has imposed sanctions on multiple Russian officials and entities involved in the war and will take measures to impose visa restrictions on more than one thousand members of the Russian military for their actions that threaten sovereignty, territorial integrity, or political independence of Ukraine. Three Russian military officials – Artyom Igorevich Gorodilov, Aleksey Sergeyevich Bulgakov, and Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Vasilyev – will be blocked from entering the US due to their involvement “in gross violations of human rights perpetrated against Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of wars,” Blinken said.

The Treasury Department said Friday that Walter Moretti and his network of associates and companies have covertly procured sensitive Western technologies and equipment for Russia.

“These targets include government ministers, governors, and high-level officials in Russia, as well as six individuals and three entities operating in parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia, facilitating grain theft, and governing on behalf of Russia,” he said.

The Department is designating three key enterprises that develop and operate of Russia’s nuclear weapons as well as three Russian civil nuclear entities. In taking these actions, we highlight that Russia uses energy resources, including in the nuclear sector, to exert political and economic pressure on its customers globally,” the top US diplomat said.

They hit three companies involved in the expansion of Russia’s future energy production and export capacity, including the design and construction of the Sever Bay Terminal that was part of the Vostok oil projects.

The agency imposed sanctions on two people with ties to the Russian Prime Minister, Nurmurad Kurbanov and Alexander Udodov.

The latest sanctions hit “numerous Russia-based entities involved in the production of carbon fiber and related materials” – materials that “are used in almost all defense-related platforms including aircraft, ground combat vehicles, ballistic missiles, and military personal protection gear, as well as other weapons systems.” They also imposed sanctions on companies tied to Russia’s aerospace, technology and electronics sectors.

“Our sanctions have had both short-term and long-term impact, seen acutely in Russia’s struggle to replenish its weapons and in its isolated economy. Our actions today with our G7 partners show that we will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes,” she said.

KYIV, Ukraine — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made a surprise visit to Ukraine Monday, in which she reaffirmed America’s support for the country and announced $1.25 billion in economic aid for things like schools and hospitals.

“Our funds help pay for emergency personnel from firefighters who answer the call when missiles strike to medical professionals who treat sick and wounded civilians,” she said at the school that the United States helped rebuild after Russian shelling.

Last month, Ukraine’s government said it faced an almost $25 billion budget shortfall since Russia invaded the country in February 2022, particularly after making income taxes optional during wartime. Without foreign support, ministries have struggled to cover expenses.

The U.S. Support of Ukraine during the World War II: High School Chemistry Teacher, Lara Chuvikina, and the Deputy Prime Minister

“Our salaries have stayed the same throughout the war, in large part thanks to the Americans’ support,” high school chemistry teacher Lara Chuvikina told NPR. The US supported a bomb shelter and elevator at the school.

The U.S. treasury chief visited the Ukrainian school as well as meeting with the president and prime minister.

“Just as security assistance bolsters the front lines, I believe that this economic assistance is fortifying the home front, thereby strengthening Ukraine’s resistance,” she said.

The Finance Ministers from the Group of 20 nations met in India and Yellen decided to stop in Kyiv to get home. Several large economies including India, China and Turkey have refused to join U.S.-led sanctions against Russia. Over the weekend, China declined to sign onto a G-20 declaration condemning Russia’s invasion.

During her remarks Monday, Yellen noted that sanctions remain an important tool to counter Russia’s “military-industrial complex,” but acknowledged that Russia buys many goods secondhand through neutral countries.

It is relatively easy to acquire manufactured goods in Russia, and they are important for manufacturing weapons. And microchip imports into Russia have increased dramatically in the past year, according to research from Elina Ribakova, deputy chief economist at the Institute of International Finance.

“There are Russian companies, oligarchs, and organizations contributing to the Russian war effort that the U.S. hasn’t sanctioned yet,” said Mykola Murskyj, director of government affairs at Razom for Ukraine, a U.S.-based human rights group.

Federy was in favor of price caps on Russian oil and fuel products. Some analysts think the measures have not had the desired effect.