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Will US aid help turn the tide of the Russia-Ukraine war?
Paraphrasing a quote often misattributed to Winston Churchill, the United States Congress finally decided to do the right thing … but not a moment too soon, and only after trying everything else first.
Last Saturday, the House of Representatives overcame months-long opposition from the far-right wing of the Republican Party and okayed a fresh military assistance package for Ukraine. Totaling nearly $61 billion, this is the largest single aid package the besieged nation will have received since the war’s onset. The bill passed the Senate on Tuesday night and was signed into law by President Joe Biden a few hours ago. Some of the newly appropriated American weapons systems and ammunition will begin flowing into Ukraine and reaching the frontline within days.
Congress had last authorized Ukraine funding in December 2022, when Democrats still controlled both chambers. Since then, further aid had been blocked by MAGA Republicans aligned with former president and presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. The legislative breakthrough came over the weekend when House Speaker Mike Johnson, alarmed by the intelligence briefings he’d received on the war’s outlook and the scope of Vladimir Putin’s aims (and spurred by Iran’s attack on Israel), ultimately decided to take up the bill on a bipartisan basis despite the threat of removal from within his own party. Once it was brought to the House floor, the bill sailed through 311 to 112.
The decision couldn’t have come at a more critical time for Ukraine’s defense. Congressional inaction had rendered the outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian military desperately short of the artillery and air defense ammunition it needed to fend off both Russian advances on the frontline as well as drone and missile strikes against its cities and power infrastructure. This allowed Moscow to seize more than 135 square miles of Ukrainian territory since the start of 2024, especially in the eastern Donetsk region, including most notably the strategic city of Avdiivka in February.
Indeed, up until last weekend, Ukraine was in danger of suffering a major setback later this spring or summer, when Russia is expected to conduct a major offensive in Donetsk. A territorial breakthrough there could have put Ukraine on course to lose the war as soon as 2025.
The influx of fresh American aid will have an immediate impact on the battlefield, helping the Ukrainians to close the artillery gap with Russia (10-to-1 earlier this month, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky), increasing the odds that they can hold their ground in Donetsk against Russia’s upcoming offensive, and making a return to 2023’s stalemate more likely through at least the end of the year. In that sense, US funding is a meaningful near-term stabilizer.
That said, closing the ammunition gap alone won’t be enough for Ukraine to stabilize the frontline. To do that, Kyiv also needs to address its military’s other big challenge: a manpower shortage. The hard-fought and politically unpopular but much-needed law lowering the mobilization age from 27 to 25, reducing service exemptions, and extending conscripts’ terms of service signed by Zelensky earlier this month should help – provided that new troops are properly trained and deployed. Ukraine also has to build up fortifications along the frontline and secure enough air defense systems to protect its cities and infrastructure amid strained supplies due to the Middle East war. If they manage to do all these things, the Ukrainians will be on a stronger military footing going into 2025 than they are now.
Alas, none of this will be enough for Ukraine to turn the tide of the war. The aid package will not give Kyiv any offensive capability this year, and it is likely to be the last major one the US approves in 2024 – and possibly ever if Trump wins the US election in November or Republicans take the Senate. Even if Biden wins a second term, there’s little domestic political support for America to continue to provide $60 billion a year every year until Russia runs out of men to throw at the “meat grinder” and accepts defeat.
Rather than a silver bullet or a turning point, the US aid package is a lifeline that will keep the Ukrainians in the fight for another year, buy the Europeans precious time to step up their defense-industrial production game, and strengthen Kyiv’s negotiating position so that when the time comes to accept the unacceptable yet inevitable outcome of a partitioned Ukraine, it is able to extract the best terms it possible can.
You don’t have to like it. I sure don’t. That doesn’t mean it ain’t happening.
Columbia & Yale protests: What campus protesters want
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Why hasn't the United Nations insisted on military observers in Gaza?
Well, the United Nations doesn't really insist on things. And when they do, it's usually symbolic. Like they insist that humanitarian aid needs to get into Gaza and it doesn't happen. Or they insist that, there needs to be protections for the Palestinian civilians or that the Hamas needs to let go, release all of the illegally held hostages, and it doesn't go anywhere. So you can insist all you want. Also, keep in mind the Security Council would be vetoing that sort of thing because the US has a veto and they continue to use it on most Israel-Palestine related resolutions.
What specific demands are being voiced by campus protesters at institutions such as Columbia and Yale?
Well, I mean, the demands that got these protests started, are all about divestment of the endowments of these universities away from any corporations that do business in make money with Israel. Because of the view that the Israeli war in Gaza is wrong, the student protesters called it a genocide and that they want to end that. We've seen that kind of demand in Europe across the board. Not as much in the United States, at least not to this degree. Having said that, now that you also have students that have been suspended and arrested, surely the campus protesters are also saying those things need to be unwound. We're also increasingly seeing demands for university administrators, including presidents, to resign. So, I mean, the longer this goes, the harder it is to actually, accede to these student demands. And of course, the more polarized the environment on the ground in these universities become.
How will US aid package approval shake the dynamic of the Russia-Ukraine war?
Well, it makes it more likely that the Ukrainians can defend their front lines, at least for now. They had been losing some territory. Not a lot, but including one city. And the Russians are planning, with an additional mobilization, a new major offensive, probably end of spring, early summer. Ukrainians have a much better capability to hit back and stop the Russians from making gains there. They had been down to about 20% of the ammunition and artillery being fired against Russia, that the Russians were firing against Ukraine. This brings that back to parity through that offensive. What does this mean for 2025? Still, massive uncertainty and eventually a need to engage in negotiations with a much bigger Russia fighting an illegal war, an invasion with all these war crimes. Is that fair? No. But is that reality? Yes, absolutely. And any NATO leader you talk to privately recognizes that's where this is eventually going.
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Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi (R), the Commander of the Defense of Kyiv.
Ukraine waits for help as Russia advances
Slow but steady gains come at great cost to Russian lives and equipment – both sides have seen tens of thousands of soldiers killed and hundreds of thousands wounded – but Russia has deeper reserves of both men and munitions.
For now, Ukraine is waiting for help, particularly from Washington. Without many more and much better weapons, warns Syrskyi, Ukraine can’t “seize the strategic initiative” back from the Russian invaders.
In Washington, House Speaker Mike Johnson continues to look for ways to provide Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in assistance while avoiding an open revolt from Republican lawmakers who want to cut Ukraine loose. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress want to see what Johnson will bring to the House floor for a vote, and Ukrainians are waiting to see how long they can resist Russia’s current momentum.
Putin using Moscow attack as excuse to intensify war on Ukraine
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
A Quick Take to kick off your week. Lots we could be talking about. But I want to go to Russia, where we have had a major terrorist attack with over 130 Russian citizens gunned down, killed by terrorists.
The United States has warned the Russians both publicly so that American citizens would know about the concern, but also with actionable intelligence privately over the past couple of weeks that ISIS was planning an attack on an area with major crowds in Moscow. Putin publicly dismissing that, kind of wish he hadn't, but that we are where we are. And Putin has now spoken to the nation. There have been a number of gunmen that have been rounded up and arrested four, that we know of, Tajik citizens and Putin did not mention that ISIS has taken credit for this terrorist attack, nor that they then released videos of some of the attackers as they were engaging in terrorism inside the rock concert venue.
Instead, he spoke implausibly about links to Ukraine that don't actually exist. Why would ISIS-K do this? I mean, the main reason is because one of their two home bases, Syria and Iraq, in Syria, destroyed by Bashar al-Assad with the direct help from Putin and the Russian military. Nobody else doing that with Assad on the ground. And there have been many terrorist attempts against Russians as a consequence in that regard, but none with spectacular success for them like we've just witnessed.
Why wouldn't Ukraine be responsible? Well, first of all, because they haven't actually been targeting civilians at all. In fact, the one time that they engaged in terrorism and it was terrorism was an attempt to kill an individual, high level Russian extremist, but who was not a political figure. He had been informally an inspiration to the Kremlin and been calling for pogroms against Ukraine, which he said shouldn't exist as a nation. And they didn't get him. Instead, they got his daughter and the United States and other NATO allies were quite angry about the fact that Ukrainians were engaged in that. But aside from that, it's been attacks on critical infrastructure. That's another thing. And certainly, if you want to talk about the Nord Stream pipeline, highly unlikely the Russians would have blown up their pipeline. Much more likely the Ukrainians either by themselves with support would have been responsible for that. The investigations have been inconclusive. That strikes me as not enormously plausible.
Also, Ukraine has been hitting a lot of refineries, Russian refineries, and that's a pretty big deal. About 5% of Russian exports are now offline. Oil exports. That could go up a lot. It could be more than half easily in coming weeks to months of over 3 million barrels a day that the Russians export. If Ukraine starts hitting Black Sea facilities, which they're certainly capable of doing. So global economic impact of this war continues to be very significant. Ability and willingness of the Ukrainians to hit targets inside Russia as well as occupied Crimea, Ukrainian territory, but the Russians annexed it back in 2014 illegally, all of that is certainly par for the course. But the idea that the Ukrainians would be involved in large scale terrorism or support it is not only implausible on the basis of the evidence, but also implausible in terms of what they've been doing historically. But of course, that doesn't matter to Putin, who now intends to use this to drive more military efforts against Ukraine, more civilian casualties.
And that's what we saw in the initial 48 hours after the attack. Unprecedented levels of missiles being sent against the capital, Kyiv, with lots of civilian targets as well as west Ukraine, Lviv in particular. We are seeing that Putin is indifferent to civilian deaths, those of the Ukrainians and, of course, those of his own people. And we probably do now see a much more mobilization from Russia, especially now that the election, the so-called election, is over and more Russian weapons that are going to be used against the Ukrainian people.
The most concerning piece of all of this, I mean, leaving aside the fact that Russia now has a second front they need to fight on, they have, you know, a concern with radical Islamic terrorism that has grown in terms of the capabilities and whether or not Putin says he's going to fight it, he's going to need to fight it. And that's going to take away scarce resources for him and it's going to put more Russian civilians at risk. But the bigger concern, the global concern, of course, is the potential for this war to expand. And there are a couple of incidents that should raise those warning bells. First, the fact that just over this weekend, of all of the missiles that were launched by Russia against Ukraine, one went through Polish airspace for less than a minute, something like 40 seconds, but nonetheless, a Russian missile that actually went through the airspace of a NATO ally. Clearly wasn't targeting that NATO ally.
But Polish and other NATO allied aircraft scrambled. And that is not something we have seen so far since the war started a couple of years ago. Also, the fact that there were a missile explosion targeting Odessa just a couple of weeks ago when President Zelensky was there, in addition to Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. And it was literally only a few hundred yards away that this missile exploded while those two men, those two leaders were on the ground and exposed very clearly. I don't believe that Mitsotakis was targeted, but the fact that he could have been hit as an NATO leader would have also put us in unprecedented danger in terms of the geopolitical order.
Certainly since anything we'd seen since 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis. What's behind that? Well, I mean, I think the most likely thing behind is that Putin doesn't have complete and operational control over everything that's going on on the ground. His military is badly trained and organized. And this was probably a mistake. Woops. But, you know, the fact is that when you have lots of people go into Ukraine and borders, look, you know, they look very defined on a map, but they're very porous in real life. And the potential for mistakes to lead to extraordinary escalation, pretty high. And certainly the willingness to allow for those mistakes to be made is higher than you would like it to be. The checks and balances there don't seem to be all that concerning for the Kremlin or for Vladimir Putin. Of course, a worse explanation would be that Putin actually is prepared to take those risks to brush NATO back. And that, of course, would lead to much more likelihood that we would have escalation that would bring a NATO ally into the war, something that clearly nobody out there wants to see.
But it's worth talking about in the context of all of this, it's much more likely the Ukrainians are now going to get their 60 billion of support. That would be the largest piece of military support so far from the United States, approved likely in mid to late April. They're seeing more ammunition, more economic, more military support from the Europeans, even though the lion share of the military support is from the US and the war continues to be dangerous, continues to be unstable and continues to be no end in sight.
So that's where we are after some very unfortunate headlines and events over the last couple of days. And I'll talk to you all real soon.
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Putin "wins" Russia election, but at what cost?
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
A Quick Take to kick off your week. Want to talk about things Russian. We, of course, just had an “election” that Putin “won.”
There is no opposition to speak of in Russia. If you're running against him and allowed to run, that means that you are considered acceptable to the regime and you're basically there to play against the Harlem Globetrotters. What was it, the senators, the generals? I can't remember what it was called, but that was the group that was there to make the winning team look good. Of course, you know, Putin is not as much fun to watch as the Globetrotters, but he certainly is politically talented and of course, it's important for him to show that he has an historic win with historic turnout better than anyone before in Russia, not quite Turkmen in Turkmenbashi in Central Asia, not quite Aliyev levels in Azerbaijan, but strong enough for Russia.
It's not just about his ego. It is important as a messaging function to the Russian people that he is seen as a legitimate leader. And, you know, there are others around the world that are prepared to play that game. Already so warm congratulations from Narendra Modi in India, who's strong enough domestically and geopolitically that he can say pretty much what he wants to and get away with it. Still a little sad that he felt it was worth doing that. Even sadder to see that from Pope Francis, who has been putting his thumb on the scale in favor of Russia vis a vis Ukraine in the war in the past weeks, the Vatican tried to walk that back, but he was one of the first, apparently, according to Russian state media, to congratulate Putin. Normally, you wouldn't believe Russian state media, but in this case, Pope Francis could very easily say that isn't true. So one assumes that it is.
But nothing good here in terms of the war vis a vis Ukraine. Putin feels domestically quite stable. That's true politically. It's also true economically. The Russian economy is not performing well. The growth we're seeing in the Russian economy is because of the war economy, which is a massive piece of what the economy represents today. But they're losing lots of human capital. If you look at places like Armenia, Georgia, you see that those economies are booming right now because all of the talented young Russians are leaving and they're going there to work. Great for those tiny countries, not so good for the Russian Federation, but none of this is a threat to Putin, is a threat to the Kremlin, nor is the war in Ukraine two plus years on, in part because of the consequences if you dare oppose it publicly, in part because Putin, while throwing hundreds of thousands of troops into the front, many, many of whom hundreds of thousands, are casualties now, an estimated minimum 300,000 Russian casualties in this war, but most of them are not coming from the major cities. A lot of them aren't even Russian ethnically.
They're coming from the middle Volga and Siberia and they're poor and disenfranchised. And, you know, it's an easier way for Putin to keep this going. Also, large numbers of prisoners that were furloughed and given some money to be sent to the front lines, treated very badly by the Russian army and also many that have come from other countries, including Kazakhstan, for example, Cuba, Nepal, other countries that have sent some of their citizens that to make some money too quick money, and some of whom have been engaged in human trafficking. So that's what's going on inside Russia.
In Ukraine, the war continues not to go well. The Ukrainians are losing some territory. They only have one real line of defense behind the front lines. The Russians have had three. They're much better dug in. And also the Ukrainians are having a serious manpower challenge, a serious ammunition challenge, and don't have the military equipment at the high level that they really need to continue to fight. That is starting to change for the near term. There's been more ammunition sent by the Europeans in the past couple of weeks. And there's also, I think, increasingly very likely that the Americans will give an additional package. I'm now hearing $60 billion for 2014 that should allow the Ukrainians to mostly maintain the land that they presently occupy. That's where we are for 2024.
Or what about after that? It's only getting more challenging not only because of the US election, but also because the Ukrainians are a much smaller country and it's harder for them to raise the personnel. It's also a democracy, even though they've pushed off their elections and it's much harder for Zelensky to get away with doing the kinds of things that Putin is doing on the ground to his own country.
All of which means ultimately, it is hard to imagine the Ukrainians winning. It's also hard to talk about the Ukrainians winning. I understand that that's something that we want to do from a morale perspective. But, you know, when we talk about people that have gone through rape, we don't talk about winners. Even if the rapist was captured and imprisoned. We talk about survivors, talk about people that go through cancer and guess you can beat cancer, but you're really a cancer survivor. And what's happened to the Ukrainians with the war crimes and the torture that they have been through, is survival. And even if they were to get all their land back, you couldn't say they won the war in reality. Say if they survived the war and Russia is still there and they have to maintain their defenses and they have to continue to have the capacity to do so. And this is not a matter of one or two or three years. It's a matter of a generation, certainly as long as the Russian regime continues to exist in its present form, I do think that it's possible for Ukraine as an entity to truly survive this war.
NATO allies continue to say that they have a role in NATO, that they are being welcomed, but they haven't given them a timeline. They really should, and they need to provide hard security guarantees until that timeline of the remaining territory that Ukraine presently occupies. The French President Macron has been talking about that, if the Russians are able to make more gains, the Americans, the Germans have not, the Poles, the balls certainly have.
There needs to be more alignment on that in the run up to the NATO summit meeting in July, I believe it is in Washington, DC. There's also needs to be capacity for the Ukrainians to continue to pay for their own economic rebuilding. And that is a significant effort that right now the Europeans are providing more than the United States is all in economically.
And that includes the cost of military support, something we don't hear as much about as we should in the United States. But that doesn't mean that's going to continue. And the pressure and stress over time is only going to grow. But I do think that there is still such a window and it is good to see that a strong majority of Republicans and Democrats in the United States are continuing to focus on this issue, even as the Middle East gets more time and more attention. And that, I think, is ultimately I mean, Trump has said very clearly he doesn't want any money or support for the border because he wants that to continue to be a disaster for Biden, something that people to vote for him for in the run up to November. But when we talk about the Ukraine war, Putin has not tried so hard to say no more money under Biden. He's instead said, if I win, not another penny. So the pressure is there. We'll see where it goes. Clearly, we are talking about a de facto partition of Ukraine, but the ability to help the Ukrainians survive this and the impact that will have on NATO more broadly and on American allies around the world, like Japan, South Korea, you name it, Taiwan.
These are all long term very, very important precedents that are going to be set on the back of whether the Americans can indeed continue to stand up for themselves and for their allies and helping the Ukrainians defend themselves.
That's it for me, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
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A Russian victory would end the global order, says Yuval Noah Harari
The Ukraine war remains the most important geopolitical conflict in the world, says bestselling author and historian Yuval Noah Harari.
In a wide-ranging conversation with Ian Bremmer filmed live at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Harari says that if Russia wins in Ukraine, the global order as we’ve known it for decades is over. "The most fundamental rule was that you cannot just invade and conquer another country just because you're stronger. This is exactly what Putin is trying to do in Ukraine."
The conversation also touches on the potential ripple effects of Russia's actions, suggesting that a successful annexation could embolden other nations to follow suit, destabilizing global peace. Harari even entertains the notion that we might be in the early stages of a third World War, unrecognized in the current moment, much like the early years of World War II were not immediately identified as such. "If he gets away with it, we'll see more and more Putins all over the world” Harari says. "There is a scenario that we are already living in the midst of the third World War and we just don't know it."
Watch full episode: Yuval Noah Harari explains why the world isn't fair (but could be)
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week online and on US public television. Check local listings.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, U.S, March 1, 2022.
What to watch at the State of the Union
It’s time for everyone’s favorite constitutionally-mandated-but-mostly-meaningless political exercise: The State of the Union. President Joe Biden will address the nation at 9 p.m. ET before a joint session of Congress, and you can expect the theatrics of past years to continue.
The speech: The White House has not released an official preview of the president’s speech, but you can expect quite a litany: Israel and Hamas, Ukraine and Russia, migration, crime, health care, abortion – you know, the usual.
Of course, the challenge for Biden might not be what he says but how he says it. He’s fighting perceptions of senility and infirmity and will be trying to show mental acuity and physical fitness as he delivers his message.
The guests: Democrats are inviting many women who have been hurt by abortion restrictions in GOP-run states since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, including Katie Cox and Kayla Smith. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will also host 17 relatives of Israelis taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7, while Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) will host Intimaa Salama, who lost 35 family members in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
The Republican guest list leans more toward law enforcement, including Border Patrol Agent Brandon Budlong, and New York police officer Zunxu Tian and Lt. Ben Kurian, who were allegedly assaulted by migrants. House Speaker Mike Johnson will have the parents of detained journalist Evan Gershkovich with him.
Not in attendance: Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska and Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny. The White House invited both women to sit with First Lady Jill Biden, but each cited scheduling conflicts. One thing to note: Appearing with Navalnaya may not have played so well for Zelenska at home, as Navalny was viewed with skepticism in Ukraine.
The GOP response: The often thankless task of presenting the Republican rebuttal to the president falls to Alabama Sen. Katie Britt. She’s the youngest woman ever to win a GOP Senate race (and may have the gig because senior figures spurned it). She says "hardworking parents and families" will be the focus of her rebuttal.
FILE PHOTO: German flag patches on Bundeswehr uniforms
Germany investigates hack of Ukraine weapons aid discussion
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz ordered an inquiry Saturday after a hacked conversation about German military aid to Ukraine was published on Russian state-run media. In a 38-minute exchange on the WebEx platform, German Air Force officers discussed using Taurus missiles against targets in Crimea, including the Kerch Bridge to Russia – despite a recent Bundestag vote against supplying the weapons to Kiev.
Moscow is using the leak to portray Berlin as an aggressor. In a Telegram post, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of the Security Council, wrote, “Our age-old rivals – the Germans – have again turned into our sworn enemies.”
The military implications
The incident has been labeled a “catastrophe” for German intelligence due to its use of an insecure communications platform, and it has reignited debate about arming Ukraine with long-range weapons. Kiev has received SCALP and Storm Shadow missiles with a range of 250 kilometers, but the Taurus’ 500-kilometer range would allow deep strikes into Russian territory, prompting fears of escalation and retaliation.
Ukraine has been requesting the Taurus since May 2023, and President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the Munich Security Conference that long-range weapons were urgently needed for his country to win the war. While Scholz had already indicated that Taurus was off the table, German officials say this latest incident was likely intended to cement that decision, to Kiev’s dismay.