Loans and frozen Russ. $$ options

Now that the House and Senate have hammered out a spending deal for the rest of fiscal year 2024, the deadlock over Ukraine aid will come into renewed focus once lawmakers return from Easter break next month.

With a Senate-passed bill that includes $60 billion in Ukraine military assistance languishing unconsidered, House Republican lawmakers — the majority of whom are believed to back continued support for Kyiv — have pitched other mechanisms to keep aid flowing.

Military-only aid

Many critics of support for Ukraine have complained that past tranches of aid helped fund pensions, schools, hospitals and other non-military needs in Kyiv.

Some have suggested that the US focus strictly on lethal military hardware. Under that scenario, however, “the Ukrainian government will rapidly not be able to function,” Brian Stokes, a visiting senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund who has studied Ukraine, tells The Post.

“It seems like a very facile and easy way for Republicans to feel like they aren’t giving away taxpayer money when in fact, they could be consigning the Ukrainian government to failure,” he added, noting economic pressure and damage to infrastructure have left Kyiv dependent on multi-layered assistance.

Loaning Ukraine aid

Last month, former President Donald Trump voiced support for packaging aid to Ukraine in the form of a loan that it would eventually be expected to repay. Last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and also argued in favor of the loan option.

But retired Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, a senior fellow at the Defense Priorities foreign policy think tank who opposes efforts to marshal more assistance to Ukraine, said, “There’s no path for them — in multi-decades, probably — where they would ever have any possibility of paying it back. So I think that’s just a marketing gimmick.”

Cashing in frozen Russian assets

After Moscow invaded, Western nations froze an estimated $280 billion worth of Russian sovereign central bank assets. Lawmakers including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have suggested tapping into that.

This past week, European leaders agreed in principle to take the interest off those assets — roughly $3.2 billion — and begin wiring that to Ukraine as early as July, according to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Davis warned, “Given the fact that we’re not at war with them, to take another country’s money because we don’t like what they’re doing sets a huge precedent.”

But John Herbst, former US ambassador to Ukraine in the George W. Bush administration, scoffed, “Oh, that’d be really provocative. Nothing like launching a war, murdering tens of thousands of people.”

The traditional approach

Past batches of Ukraine aid came without strings attached.

“If the United States continues to support Ukraine the way it has, Russia will not be victorious,” said Herbst.

Proponents also note most of the money is being used to revitalize US military-industrial capacity. Stokes said the old weapons the US sends are being replaced “with more up-to-date armaments . . . it’s actually spurring us to up our game a bit.”