Half of promised Western military aid to Kyiv is failing to be delivered on time, Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov despaired on Sunday as he issued a call for benefactors to make haste to save his country from potential ruin.
Ukraine blamed the claimed tardiness in deliveries of donated aid as having negative consequences for its two-year fight against Russia, AFP reports.
“At the moment, commitment does not constitute delivery,” Umerov said during a commemoration to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of its neighbour.
“Fifty percent of commitments are not delivered on time,” he added, even as contributors continue to send tens of billions of dollars worth of help.
Umerov argued Ukraine is being put at a further disadvantage “in the mathematics of war” against Russia, which the West has said is increasingly building a war economy.
He said that delayed aid will mean Kyiv will “lose people, lose territories”, especially given Russia’s “air superiority.”
“We do everything possible and impossible but without timely supply it harms us,” he said, although others are arguing to the contrary.
File/A Royal Australian Air Force air movements operator from No. 23 Squadron guides a donated Bushmaster protected mobility vehicle bound for Ukraine onto a C-17A Globemaster III aircraft at RAAF Base Amberley, Queensland. (ADF)
Earlier this month Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) told an international security conference in Munich, Germany, the $60 billion package of U.S. aid stuck in Congress wouldn’t “fundamentally change the reality” on the ground in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and others are demanding passage of the aid without hinderance, as Breitbart News reported.
But Vance told the final day of the conference, an annual gathering of security and foreign policy officials, “the problem in Ukraine … is that there’s no clear end point” and the U.S. simply doesn’t make enough weapons to support endless wars in eastern Europe, the Middle East and “potentially a contingency in East Asia.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson insists he won’t be “rushed” into approving the $95.3 billion foreign aid package from the Senate that includes the help for Ukraine, but the bill has been held up by Republican opposition over its lack of funding and support for U.S. border security.
Johnson said he had requested a meeting with President Joe Biden months ago on these issues, and was still waiting for the opportunity to talk one-on-one.
If the package goes through, “that is not going to fundamentally change the reality on the battlefield,” Vance argued, pointing to limited American manufacturing capacity.