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‘A WATERSHED MOMENT’: THE VIEW FROM UKRAINE  
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Elizaveta Antonova
April 26, 2024
Meduza [[link removed]]

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_ Zelensky administration adviser Mykhailo Podolyak on what the new
U.S. aid package means for the war’s future _

Ukrainian soldiers receiving combat awards from President Zelensky,
October 2022, photo: public domain

 

After months of congressional negotiations and public uncertainty,
U.S. President Joe Biden signed
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bill into law on Wednesday that will grant nearly $61 billion worth of
economic and military aid to Ukraine. The package will provide a
lifeline to Ukraine in its war effort, but the future of the
country’s fight for survival against Russia remains far from
certain; Kyiv will still likely receive less
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aid this year than last, when its highly-anticipated
counteroffensive failed
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yield significant results. To find out what effect Ukraine’s
leadership expects this new tranche to have, Meduza spoke to Mykhailo
Podolyak, a top adviser to the Zelensky administration.

On April 23, the U.S. Senate approved
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aid legislation that includes $61 billion in assistance for Ukraine
— the first significant Ukraine aid bill Congress has passed since
December 2022. U.S. President Joe Biden signed the bill the following
day, vowing
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weapons shipments would begin “in the next few hours.” The
bill’s passage followed more than six months of intense negotiations
by a gridlocked Congress, leading many observers to speculate
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the meantime that the war may be a lost cause.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, who spoke to Meduza
after the bill’s Senate approval, said he never doubted that the aid
would eventually be passed. He did note, however, that the package
isn’t as large as it sounds when compared to Russia’s military
spending. “Sixty-one billion dollars isn’t some enormous amount
that will fully cover Ukraine’s weapons shortage,” he said.
“Russia’s total military budget is around $250–320 billion,
including direct appropriations, indirect appropriations, and
assistance from countries like North Korea
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[so] we’re not talking about a level playing field here.”

Nonetheless, Podolyak said, the new package includes most of the types
of equipment Ukraine’s military needs most urgently
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now, including ammunition, long-range missiles, air defense missiles,
electronic warfare equipment, and drones, among others weapons.
Podolyak said that the quantities and logistics were still being
finalized but that he has confidence in the U.S. to allocate the
funding effectively: “Our American military partners have a good
understanding of what’s most important right now for the Ukrainian
Armed Forces to be able to take active defense measures in a number of
areas.”
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Frontline fractures: Ukraine’s use of drones to compensate for
critical ammo shortage isn’t enough to stop Russia’s creeping
advance [[link removed]]

The main piece of equipment Ukraine needs that’s not included in the
package, Podolyak said, is F-16 fighter jets. While Washington has so
far declined to provide the U.S.-made aircraft, it has granted
permission for other countries to do so. Ukrainian pilots are
currently training
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fly the planes, which the country will receive from a number of its
European allies. “The key participant in this coalition is
the Netherlands
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said Podolyak. “The training itself takes place in various
countries, and multiple countries are helping with the supply
logistics.” He noted that any country can join the coalition at any
time.

“We also have the artillery coalition
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about 20 countries, led by Czechia, have come together and are
preparing to finance artillery procurement,” Podolyak added.
“There’s also the drone coalition
[[link removed](UAVs).],
which is being led by Latvia. And [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz has
just come out with a very good initiative
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they’re planning to organize additional shipments of Patriot air
defense systems.

These European-led coalitions are in part a product of the months of
uncertainty over the future of U.S. aid that preceded the new bill’s
passage; the possibility that no more major packages would be
forthcoming from Congress prompted E.U. members to try to pick up the
slack. However, Podolyak noted, there’s a crucial difference between
the supplies coming from Washington and those coming from Europe:
timing.

“[The U.S.] has more of all of these things in its warehouses than
European countries do. The U.S. military has a lot more weapons,
ammunition, and consumables like shells and missiles of various
modifications, including ones for air defense systems,” he said.
“The Europeans, to provide us with these same types of tools, will
need to invest a lot of money [and wait for production] or search on
the global market [and purchase additional weapons]. Whereas the U.S.
has all of these things in warehouses — it’s just a question of
supply logistics.

‘The next stage will be scaling’ Zelensky advisor Mykhailo
Podolyak explains what Kyiv thinks about the drone attacks on Moscow
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While the new aid package won’t ensure Ukraine’s victory or
guarantee a successful counteroffensive, Podolyak said, it will have a
major positive impact on the country’s ability to carry out
defensive operations. “If we understand that our [weapons] shortage
has become less severe, we can do more planning and destroy larger
amounts of the reserves Russia is using on the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia,
and Luhansk fronts,” he told Meduza.

Additionally, he said, the replenishment of Kyiv’s arsenal will have
a psychological effect — for Russia as well as Ukraine. “We’ll
understand that our troops have artillery now,” he said. “And it
will affect Russia even more because the amount of destroyed [Russian]
equipment and personnel is going to increase. It will allow us to
stabilize the front line [and] carry out more effective defensive
operations in terms of the amount of damage they cause.”

The future of American assistance to Ukraine is still in doubt, and
the upcoming U.S. presidential election only adds precarity to the
situation. As Mykola Bielieskov, a research fellow at the National
Institute for Strategic Studies in Kyiv, recently told
[[link removed]] Bloomberg,
“The question is whether there will be aid and in what volume in
2025 and beyond — as Putin’s strategy is to wait it out.”

But Podolyak said the assistance
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Ukraine approved by the U.S. and E.U. countries in recent months makes
him confident that the “pro-Ukraine coalition” is committed for
the long run. “We see the rhetoric coming out of Europe,” he said.
“We see how [U.S. House Speaker Mike] Johnson’s rhetoric has
changed.” He continued:

“There’s an understanding that there’s no compromising in this
war. Because any compromise with Putin means a protracted war. He’ll
simply pause for a while, and then the frozen conflict will start to
unfreeze — with far more destructive consequences.

According to Podolyak, the package approved by Congress this week
marked a “watershed moment” at which the U.S. “needed to decide
for themselves whether to see this through or not.” The bill’s
passage, he said, shows that “America’s decided to see it through
to the end.”

When asked whether a second Trump presidency could spell trouble for
the future of American aid to Ukraine, Podolyak said he sees the
situation as a “process of constant dialogue.”
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‘Much more unpopular than anyone anticipated’   After months of
deliberation and thousands of amendments, Ukraine’s new mobilization
law frustrates politicians and soldiers alike
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In an April 22 interview
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BBC News Ukrainian, Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo
Budanov warned of a “difficult period” for Ukraine starting in
mid-May. According to Podolyak, Budanov was referring to anticipated
Russian attempts to exploit the formal expiration
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Volodymyr Zelensky’s five-year presidential term by intensifying
attacks on Ukrainian cities while conducting an information campaign
promoting the idea that Zelensky’s presidency is illegitimate.
(Ukraine’s constitution prohibits
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while martial law is in effect.)

The passage of the U.S. aid package, however, “somewhat thwarted
their plans,” Podolyak said: “They thought that there would be a
delay in aid and that this would help them amplify the notion that
[Ukraine’s Western partners] no longer want to help it.” At the
same time, he warned against alarmism, noting that Budanov also said
there’s “no reason to expect Armageddon.” “We understand what
they’re going to do,” Podolyak concluded. “And we know how to
counteract Russia’s disinformation campaigns, because we don’t
have any issues with legitimacy.”

Interview
[[link removed]] by ELIZAVETA
ANTONOVA. English-language summary by SAM BREAZEALE.

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* Ukraine
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* Russia
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* US Military Aid
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