The Ukraine war drags on. Joe Biden wants to give $60 billion more to Kyiv, feeding the fantasy of Ukraine politicians that they will be able to defeat Russia on the battlefield and impose their own terms on Moscow.
It's a fantasy, of course. And Ukraine's Western allies are beginning to realize it.
But it's still verboten in the U.S. to mention "negotiations" with Russia. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) stated the obvious when he told reporters that the fear of a Russian invasion of Western Europe if Ukraine is defeated is unfounded.
“If you look at the size of the Russian armed forces, if you look at what would be necessary to conquer all of Ukraine, much less to go further and further west into Europe, I don’t think the guy’s shown any capacity to be able to accomplish these, these imperialistic goals, assuming that he has them,” Vance told reporters.
Yes, Putin has these "imperialistic goals." But Vance is right about the Russian military being unable to advance much further than Ukraine given the size of its armed forces and the huge challenges they would face in advancing into Western Europe.
It might be a different story if Russia were able to conquer Ukraine and use that country as a base to attack Poland and other NATO countries. But Putin is not going to conquer Ukraine, and the Ukrainians aren't going to give up. This means stalemate, which is exactly where we are now.
There's been a concerted effort by the pro-Ukraine lobby in Washington to try and scare Republicans into giving Ukraine the $60 billion on the table now. "Ukraine in mortal danger without aid," said Ukraine's first lady, Olena Zelenskyy. That's an exaggeration given that Russia is stalled on the battlefield as much as Ukraine.
Vance has become something of a truth-sayer on Ukraine lately. His statements on the war have been logical and based on historical realities.
“It ends the way nearly every single war has ever ended: when people negotiate and each side gives up something that it doesn’t want to give up,” Vance said.
“No one can explain to me how this ends without some territorial concessions relative to the 1991 boundaries,” he added.
Our Ukraine policy is unsustainable. The average age of a soldier in their army is 43–older than me. No one can articulate what $61 billion will accomplish, so we need to be pushing a negotiated end to the war. pic.twitter.com/IPV5tZH0D7
— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) December 10, 2023
Of course, many met Vance's reasonable analysis with cries of "Blasphemy!"
TRAITOR. Everything he says is wrong. The soldier's age is due to a conscious policy to avoid sending all young men into combat. The money will win the war. Ask Ben Hodges, former US European commander, who has been right on the war from the start. The Russian army is far more…
— Randy Mott (@randymot4) December 11, 2023
Ulraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be in Washington to plead for aid from Congress. Perhaps while he's here, he can answer a few simple questions about where the previous $100 billion had been spent. Vance said in an interview with Steve Bannon that some of that aid would end up in the pockets of Zelenskyy's ministers so they could "buy a bigger yacht."
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) objected and called questions about where the Ukraine aid had gone "bulls**t."
“If you’re talking about giving money to Ukrainian ministers — total and unmitigated bulls**t,” Tillis continued. “Not productive conversation… not real happy about it.”
The Hill:
Presented with Tillis’s criticism later Monday, Vance said he believes Ukraine is “one of the most corrupt countries in Europe.”
“We know that a number of people have gotten rich in Ukraine, and … I think it’s naivety if you don’t think they’ve gotten rich with some of our money,” Vance told reporters.
Maintaining that Tillis is “one of his favorite colleagues,” Vance said the North Carolina Republican is “not living in reality.”
Vance is correct. Ukraine is the second most corrupt government in all of Europe. Only Russia is more corrupt. And the Biden administration dismisses concerns about the endemic corruption in Ukraine despite private reservations about the honesty of the government there.
This war needs to end. The trillion-dollar cost of rebuilding the war-torn nation is already too high. The million landmines waiting for innocent men, women, and children to trigger are the most in the world. And Ukraine's dream of reconquering "every single inch" of territory that Russia has taken is a fool's dream.
If it takes denying Ukraine U.S. aid to get it to the negotiating table, so be it.
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