As year three of its war with Russia begins, Ukraine’s forces are exhausted and depleted, ammunition supplies are running low, and the country just suffered a morale-busting defeat in Avdiivka, retreating after four months of grueling combat to defend the town. The United States had helped Ukraine beat back Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion, yet, at this critical moment, Congress is wavering. At stake is not just the survival of democracy in Ukraine — but the future of Europe, international peace and the United States’ credibility.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), can bring a Senate-passed Ukraine aid bill to the floor, where it likely has the votes to pass. His refusal so far — bowing to Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump — is a gross dereliction of responsibility, hurting Ukraine, the United States and the Republican Party.
At the two-year mark, Ukraine is not defeated. When the full-scale Russian invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022, Mr. Putin’s orders included “the murder of Ukraine’s executive branch and the capture of parliament,” while Russian security services and military rehearsed “kill-or-capture” missions to find those behind Ukraine’s pro-democracy Maidan Revolution in 2014. The plans anticipated seizing Ukraine’s national heating, electricity and financial operations to subjugate the population. Mr. Putin assumed Ukrainians would submit in a matter of days. But none of this happened. Despite devastating losses, Ukraine rallied to fight back. Its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, was not murdered, its army has fought with courage and cunning, its air defenses have downed hundreds of missiles, and Ukraine has disabled one-third of Russia’s Black Sea fleet by the use of unmanned naval drones. Russia occupies just under one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory, including Crimea and Donbas taken in 2014.
But Ukraine’s war effort is precarious, as the rushed retreat from Avdiivka showed. Hundreds of Ukrainian solders were reported captured or killed in the chaos. Russia massed troops on three sides of the city and then cut off the last Ukrainian path out. The Russian forces threw wave after wave of assault troops at the Ukraine holdouts, who were outnumbered 7 to 1. A Ukraine major fighting there was quoted by the New York Times as saying in December, “I would say the motto of their attacks is, ‘We have more people than you have ammunition, bullets, rockets and shells.’”
This defeat explains Ukraine’s vulnerability — it is smaller than Russia and depends on the United States and Europe to sustain the war. If it cannot keep fighting, there will be more Avdiivkas, or worse. Only Ukraine can solve its serious personnel problem; a platoon commander estimated for Reuters that just 60 to 70 percent of the several thousand men in his brigade at the start of the conflict were still serving. A new troop mobilization bill is moving through parliament. But the West can help Ukraine with weapons supplies. The pause since the last U.S. funds ran out has created a dire shortage of artillery and ammunition, permitting Ukraine to fire just one shot for every five Russia discharges.
Mr. Putin, marshaling Russia’s larger economy and manpower, seems prepared to accept devastating losses indefinitely. He must see the Johnson-Trump roadblock in Congress as encouraging. Mr. Putin has imposed a totalitarian hold on Russia, so he does not face any serious internal political challenge. After the harsh treatment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, sent to a frigid prison above the Arctic Circle, where he died a week ago, Russians are not likely to protest. Ksenia Khavana, a 33-year-old dual Russian American citizen from Los Angeles who was visiting her parents in Yekaterinburg, was detained on charges of “treason” for her $51 contribution two years ago to a Ukrainian charity. A 72-year-old woman was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for disseminating “fake news” about the Russian military in two reposts on the social media platform VKontakte.
Ukraine seeks to escape this kind of dictatorship; its aspirations are democratic. Fortunately, European nations seem to be growing more aware of the threat from Russia, helping to fill — but far from making up for — the huge assistance gap the United States has left.
Republicans used to champion democratic values against the tyranny of the Soviet Union and Mr. Putin’s Russia, not only to advance freedom but also to build enduring international partnerships through which free peoples prospered. This posture served the nation for generations. Now, a Republican House speaker and a Republican presidential front-runner are blocking aid to Ukraine at this pivotal time.
Mr. Johnson has Ukraine’s future in his hands, as well as the commitments of the United States. He can save both from becoming casualties of Russia’s aggression.
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