Moscow appears unconcerned with the $61 billion aid bill
File photo: The Kremlin and St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, Russia © Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Washington’s $61 billion pledge to Kiev will make little difference on the battlefield, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.
The US House of Representatives approved a $95 billion foreign aid package, almost two thirds of which would be spent on Ukraine-related programs. The Kremlin, however, doesn’t appear the slightest bit alarmed.
“Fundamentally, this will not change the situation on the battlefield,” Peskov told reporters on Monday.
Pointing to the steady Russian advances along the front, Peskov said the dynamics of the conflict are now “absolutely clear to everyone,” and that the money and weapons the US will allocate to Ukraine “will not lead to a change in this dynamic.”
“They will lead to new casualties among Ukrainians, more Ukrainians will die, Ukraine will suffer major losses,” the presidential spokesman said.
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Moreover, he noted, the bulk of the aid money is supposed to stay in the US, one way or another. The White House itself argued this to Congress as one of the selling points, saying that the package was a stimulus for the US military-industrial complex and manufacturing base.
“In principle, nothing has changed,” Peskov said, noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin fully expected the US lawmakers to vote the way they did.
Reacting to the vote on Saturday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the US was using Ukrainians as “cannon fodder” and hoping to keep Kiev on life support until after the November presidential election. In the end, she said, the US will end up facing a “loud and humiliating fiasco on a par with Vietnam or Afghanistan.”
The newest batch of US aid might help slow down the Russians but won’t stop them, several Ukrainian officers have told Financial Times. No amount of weapons and ammunition from the West can solve Kiev’s biggest problem: the lack of manpower, the outlet noted.
Kirill Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, also predicted “a rather difficult situation” on the battlefield for the Kiev government in the coming months.
