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U.S. President Joe Biden held a conference call with Western leaders on Tuesday to coordinate aid to Ukraine, after the two sides reached a compromise that kept the U.S. government open and ruled out more aid to Kyiv.
The call appeared to be an attempt to reassure jittery allies as Ukraine tries to gain some leverage in a battle that looks increasingly deadlocked and Kyiv prepares for another challenging winter.
The Biden administration is urging Congress to hold another vote on additional funding for Ukraine as soon as possible, but infighting on Capitol Hill and uncertainty about Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s grip on power have raised questions about immediate additional aid.
The White House will soon announce another deadly aid package for Ukraine and has enough money to continue helping Ukraine for some time, officials said, but added that Congress needed to vote soon.
Leaders from Canada, Italy, Japan, Poland, Romania, the United Kingdom, France, NATO, the European Commission and the European Council participated in the call.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said it was a “good call” and added that Europe’s support for Ukraine was “unwavering”. She said she had proposed 50 billion euros in macro-financial aid to Ukraine, promised to deliver 1 million rounds of ammunition by March 2024, and promised that the EU would take action to ensure “full accountability for Russia’s crimes against Ukrainians.”
A statement from the German Chancellery said the focus of the call was “the firm belief of all participants that we must support Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression for as long as necessary.”
As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky inspected troops in northeastern Ukraine on Tuesday, an adviser to his government called on Kyiv’s Western allies to “tell the truth.”
“You (our partners) also urgently need artillery shells, long-range missiles and air defense systems for Ukraine,” Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “Because it’s about existence, it’s about… what’s cheaper… to stop Russia now or wait until Russia’s bloodthirsty ambitions grow significantly,” he added.
“Russia plans to increase its invasion budget by 68% by 2024,” Olena Halushka, co-founder of the Victory International Center in Ukraine, told the Warsaw Security Forum on Tuesday, an apparent reference to Moscow’s defense Spending plan.
She added: “If the West is serious about defending and helping Ukraine be saved as a sovereign state, it is very important to ensure that we have sufficient resources to win this war quickly.”
Additional reporting by Christopher Miller in Kyiv, Henry Foy in Brussels and Guy Chazan in Berlin
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