President Biden, a man of zero taste and refinement, fund raising in California at Rancho Santa Fe, told the attendees that former President Jimmy Carter has asked him to give the eulogy at his funeral. He could have turned into a two-for, and prepared a eulogy for Ukraine. While the war there may grind on for many months, the handwriting is more than on the wall, it is on the grave markers of tens of thousands of fallen Ukrainian soldiers.
Last week Dmytro Kotsiubailo, Hero of Ukraine, better known by his call-sign, Da Vinci, was buried at Askold’s Grave site in Kyiv. He was laid to rest along with a father and son, both soldiers, who perished with Kotsiubailo, like him killed in Bakhmut. Zelensky attended the funeral along with Sanna Marin, Finland’s Prime Minister, a lady leading her country into NATO, ostensibly to protect Finland from Russia.
Kotsiubailo was the leader of an “volunteer” outfit known as the Wolves. He had been fighting against pro-Russian forces starting in 2014. Similar to the Azov brigade, the Wolves want to liquidate Russians on Ukrainian territory.
The Washington Post, long a drum beater for supporting the war in Ukraine and bashing the Russians (no worries about a bigger war or nuclear weapons) now is reporting that most of the best trained Ukrainian soldiers, if not all, are dead. Ukraine is carrying out a forced conscription, trying to fill its ranks with new bodies. While there is still talk of a coming Ukrainian offensive, if there is one it will be fought by inexperienced soldiers. And, despite massive deliveries of armaments to Ukraine, Zelensky has admitted that they are running low on ammunition and need more urgently.
The Europeans have already said they are out of bullets. The Biden administration is also facing the reality of serious shortages of ammunition for howitzers (such as 155mm shells) and more sophisticated equipment including the Stinger MANPAD and the Javelin antitank missile. Meanwhile the Russians claim to now be able to shoot down HIMARS rockets, which also are in short supply, so much so that the order for Taiwan may not be filled for years.
The Ukraine war is very costly for the United States (less so for our allies who are notoriously cheap). Over $100 billion has already be spent for supplies and support for Ukraine. That does not include the staggering bill for the AWACS and surveillance aircraft flights, the satellites, and communications, the command and control, the intelligence operations and everything else the administration is hiding under the rug. When you take that into account, and price it into the US defense budget, the real 2024 proposed defense budget is in deficit compared to 2023 (which was, itself, well below what is needed even for deterrence). Americans are barely aware the US is paying the salaries of the Ukrainian government and its military.
Our allies also continue to fall behind in defense spending. Britain is woefully unprepared. The same is true in Germany.
The harsh truth is that the Ukraine conflict should be settled by the warring parties, the sooner the better. But it won’t be so long as Washington is telling Zelensky not to negotiate, and holding out the hope that somehow Ukraine will get some big victories over the Russians, and somehow the Putin government will collapse, and somehow then the Russians can be chased back across the border forever.
Biden can’t afford a defeat in Ukraine because he already is responsible for the Afghanistan debacle. His barking dog Victoria Nuland, who bears personal responsibility for some many killed in Ukraine, now wants Ukraine to take back Crimea. Not only is that idea way beyond any capability that Ukraine has, but it only makes more distant a reckoning between the warring parties, as Crimea is held sacrosanct by Russia.
Today Ukraine is a failed state objectively. Its economy is in ruins, millions have left the country, its infrastructure is being wrecked by Russian attacks. Ukraine’s army is now steadily being pushed back by the Russians. The war, which was for a while in a deadlock, has now turned in Russia’s favor.
There is no alternative voice in Ukraine or in Russia. Zelensky has arrested or forced into exile, or jailed, most political opponents. He is now attacking the Russian Orthodox Church, forcing monks to leave monasteries and claiming that the Russian Orthodox Church is a Russian fifth column. In Russia opponents of the war are arrested and jailed, sometimes they disappear.
The US is in the uncomfortable position of claiming it is fighting for a democratic Ukraine, when it is anything but. At the same time, the sanctions on Russia, including sanctions against Russian political and military leaders, and on oligarchs, has rendered any means of conversation and bargaining, technically almost impossible. Europe is even worse and more stupid, creating an underlying anger in Russia that could, on any day, reach a tipping point.
Potential Presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, says that Ukraine is not war that we should “becom[e] further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia” and it is not in America’s national interest. His stand could presage a big change in the attitude of Congressional Republicans on supporting the war in future —an important marker for Biden who faces hostility not only from Republicans on the right, but many Democrats on the left. Whether Congress will support any more money for Ukraine is, for the first time, in doubt.
There is a danger, of course, that Biden could try and end run and commit US military forces (in some form) to the fight. But that might force Biden out of office.