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Written by Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher
The White House strategic communications coordinator, John Kirby, at a time when Kiev insists that it needs more weapons to combat Russian forces, said once again that Washington has no more funds for Ukrainian troops and stressed that there is not another package “in the works right now.” His statement comes as the Ukrainian foreign minister attempts to manipulate Congress using a Russian disinformation narrative.
“There isn’t another one in the works right now or being scheduled for announcement or delivery. We meant it when we said it at the time, that that was the last one for which we had replenishment authority. And there’s — there’s not another one in the in the works right now,” the American official said during a press conference on January 16.
Two days before, the Pentagon acknowledged that it could no longer extract weapons from its arsenals to send them to Kiev since all the funds it used to replenish military material had been exhausted.
“We don’t have the funds available to us to replenish those stocks should we expend that. And with no timeline in sight, we have to make those hard decisions. And so the most important thing right now is securing additional funding from Congress, and we’ll continue to work closely with them on this important security — international security issue,” said Department of Defense Pat Ryder.
Currently, the Biden Administration is negotiating with Republicans in the House of Representatives to unfreeze a new military aid package valued at about $106 billion, of which $61.4 billion would go to Ukraine and $14.3 billion to Israel. However, the Republicans refuse to approve the package if the Biden administration does not establish tougher measures to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the US.
They also allege that there is a lack of mechanisms to ensure the transparency of the true use of American money when it arrives in Ukraine.
“What the Biden Administration seems to be asking for is billions of additional dollars with no appropriate oversight, no clear strategy to win, and none of the answers that I think the American people are owed,” said the speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, a Republican legislator who, unlike some of his more radical colleagues, is in favour of increasing aid.
The US cannot find information on almost 40,000 pieces of military equipment destined for Ukraine, The New York Times reported, citing a document obtained from the Pentagon. The US has lost $1 billion of the total $1.7 billion, according to the document from the Department of Defense that was sent to Congress and the press, with only a redacted version released to the public.
The newspaper did not give details of the 39,139 missing high-risk pieces, whose impact on the battlefield, confidential technology and relatively small size make them sought after by arms smugglers. It is recalled that under the US Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, the fate and use of the weapons supplied should have been closely monitored.
Great concern about the financial and military aid given to Ukraine, at a time when the US Congress is debating whether to send more aid to Kiev, has been raised. Numerous reports suggest that some of the donated weapons have already ended up on the black market around the world.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba flat out denied the allegations and described it as Russian “disinformation.”
“Every attempt by Russia to disinform the world about (the) alleged leak or illicit traffic of U.S. weapons into other parts of the world… turned out to be fake,” said Kuleba. “So don’t believe in fakes, believe in Ukraine.”
However, it is a ridiculous notion to claim weapons destined for Ukraine that end up on the black market as Russian disinformation.
It is recalled that the New York Times reported in May 2023 that “Ukrainian soldiers risk their lives to keep weapons from the black market”; Axios reported in July 2023 that “the US struggled to track military aid to Ukraine,” according to a Pentagon watchdog; and the Cato Institute reported in May 2023 “the tragic but unsurprising costs of loose US weapons,” among many other examples of non-Russian sources reporting the weapons scandal.
Kuleba’s attempts to justify more US aid by claiming some of the criticisms are Russian disinformation will obviously not manipulate Congress into approving a new package. It is likely a package will eventually be agreed upon when the Republicans get the concessions they want from Biden, but Kuleba’s entitled behaviour will only deepen the opposition’s animosity toward Ukraine, and only months away from the next US presidential election.
no more weapons until after the next rigged election then hunter will still expect his share of the money from the weapons sold.
us will simply hand over large part of the money it has frozen from russian assets – and hand that over to ukraine. so ukraine can then buy weapons whereever they want – and will likely do so in the us and uk. that’s it. no big deal.
no, its not so easy like that, because first, its illegal and against all international laws, and second, if they do so, russia will respond, because there are also still a few dozent billion usd in worth of us and eu companies in russia.
this would drive physical gold very high which would benefit russia. it would also destroy the dollar more than the value of the russian reserves .
what’s that sound i hear? oh, just the dollar imploding. pay no mind.
the really funny part though is that russia has foreign assets sitting in its banks that it may very well seize in retaliation and then tell the owners to sue their governments for compensation.
most important thing is all western weapons are already in ukraine, destroyed
hunter said that if they send him to jail, he’ll break down in tears and poppa will arrest them all for cruelty to jackasses.
see, we betray the current nazis just as we betrayed the last ones. only usefull if we americans get an return of investment. but sadly, zelenskyi did not deliver. just as adolf didnt.
maybe we can get the stupid poles or finns to do it next. they certainly fit our criteria!
🗽😍🎉😁
i suspect that german soldiers will replace the ukies in ww 3. the khazars have always wanted to genocide german and russian men.
as biden said: “our weapons exists to murder people. ukrainians aren’t good enough for the task, but jews are. in 3 months israel has been able to kill and maim more than ukrainians did in 2 years of war. from now on our bombs are going to israel!”
no more tax dollars for nazis
as if u ever paid taxes
‘best bang for buck since i stopped selling myself to strangers in bus station toilets”, anonymous nafomosexual.
get urself some glases or further englisch lessons so u finally understand: bang for buck best war since gulf war 2. the war cost nothing,all spending secured/ covered by frozen 300 billion+ russian assets.
unhappily holding back, are old western farts/ academics stuck in cold war mentalität. we are dealing with al capone regime, only language understood is force, so use force. send as much as possible and then some more. finance airwing legion eagle / condor and just call it little blue yellow men. other side cant complain given little green men in 2014+.
saint petersburg has been hit by drones yesterday – again, the world can’t stop laughing at weak ruzzia 😆😆😆
i just want to add that me and jens holm are going to celebrate this with more buttsex. he said he didnt poop 3 days, this is going to save me money for lube! nice!
🐖🗽🔯🎉😍
cheapskates. can’t they at least send a few containers of diapers?
i told this before, there will no be more support for ukraine because its electoral year in usa. so, ukraine had lost their last opportunity, they had a 2 year window time, and they lose in the battlefield, lose in diplomacy, politically. ukraine goverment is beginning to collapse, but they can be very dangerous on this situation, they can do crazy stuff on russia, so russia must be prepare to terrorism not from ukraine citizens but their masters, the us uk anglo empire that started this mess
i didn’t realize before, but the “neocons” who controls washington and us goverment are always in “war mode”, even before cold war, they always are looking to profit from wars and expand the empire resources, land, sea routes and want to own puppet countries and goverments worldwide. beware! the empire has hungry, and their throne is about to collapse, so they are very dangerous right now