US House approves US$40 billion aid package
Intelligence officials warn that Russia may be readying for long war
US lawmakers have voted to send a US$40 billion aid package to Ukraine as Washington warned that Russia was likely girding for a long conflict.
The defence, humanitarian and economic funding passed the House of Representatives by 368 votes to 57, with the two parties’ leaders having already reached an agreement on the details, and it is likely to pass the Senate by the end of the week or next week.
“With this aid package, America sends a resounding message to the world of our unwavering determination to stand with the courageous people of Ukraine until victory is won,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told her Democratic colleagues ahead of the vote.
Congressional leaders struck a deal on Monday to release US$6.8 billion more than the US$33 billion previously requested by the White House. The boost includes an extra US$3.4 billion for both military and humanitarian assistance.
If the package passes the Senate as expected, US spending to bolster Ukraine’s defences against Russia’s invasion and address the ensuing humanitarian crisis will soar to around US$54 billion.
The package came as a top US official warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin was preparing for a long war that may not end with victory in the east.
“We assess President Putin is preparing for prolonged conflict in Ukraine during which he still intends to achieve goals beyond the Donbas,” Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said at a hearing on Capitol Hill.
The war has killed thousands of civilians, sent millions of Ukrainians fleeing and reduced cities to rubble. Moscow has little to show for it beyond a strip of territory in the south and marginal gains in the east.
Russian forces still intended to win territory across the Black Sea coast, in part to secure water resources for Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014, Haines said.
“We … see indications that the Russian military wants to extend the land bridge to Transnistria,” Haines said, referring to the Moscow-backed separatist region of Moldova along Ukraine’s southwest border.
However, she said the current
Russian force was not large or strong enough to capture and hold all that territory without a more general mobilisation of troops and resources.
The Russian leader “faces a mismatch between his ambitions and Russia’s current conventional military capabilities”, she said.
That “likely means the next few months could see us moving along a more unpredictable and potentially escalatory trajectory”, she said.
“The current trend increases the likelihood that President Putin will turn to more drastic means, including imposing martial law, reorienting industrial production, or potentially escalatory military options to free up the resources needed to achieve his objectives,” Haines told the panel.
She added that Putin was counting on Western resolve to weaken over time and as the conflict continued, there was concern about how it would develop in the coming months.
During the same hearing, the head of the Defence Intelligence Agency said the war was at a stalemate.
“The Russians aren’t winning and the Ukrainians aren’t winning and we’re at a bit of a stalemate here,” Lieutenant General Scott Berrier said.
Putin exhorted Russians to battle in a defiant Victory Day speech on Monday but was silent about plans for any escalation in Ukraine despite Western warnings he might use his address to order a national mobilisation.
Haines, who oversees the US intelligence community, including the CIA and National Security Agency, said they did not believe the Russian leader was prepared to deploy nuclear weapons.
Putin uses nuclear “rhetoric” to scare the West from backing Ukraine, according to Haines.
As he perceives the West as ignoring those threats, she said Russia could step up the rhetoric by launching a new nuclear forces exercise involving the dispersal of his land, air and submarine nuclear threats.
Nevertheless, Haines said US intelligence believed Putin would only approve the use of even smaller “tactical” nuclear weapons if Russia itself was under “existential threat”.
She said Moscow would escalate its signalling to make clear at what point it was ready to use a nuclear weapon.