FPI / December 20, 2023
Two years into the war against Russia, the funding spigot to Ukraine from the West has been essentially turned off.
Ukraine is short of soldiers and ammunition.
And Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky is running out of time.
“A year ago, Volodymyr Zelensky was riding high. True, Ukraine wasn’t winning the war against Russia. But the president was receiving billions of dollars from the United States and the European Union, enabling him to maintain the loyalty of his military and intelligence community,” independent journalist Steve Rodan noted in a Dec. 19 Substack.com analysis.
“Today, Zelensky is rapidly losing his money and influence. Washington has been forced to drastically reduce funding and the EU has stopped the faucet.”
So, what’s left for the former comedian running the show in Kiev?
Words.
“We are becoming more powerful every month,” Zelensky claimed during a Dec. 19 news conference in which only one correspondent was allowed to attend. “With regard to the battlefield, Russia hasn’t achieved any of its goals this year.”
On the funding scene, U.S. President Joe Biden has failed to deliver a new $61 billion funding package as the Republican-controlled House insists Ukraine only gets more funding if Biden agrees to do something about the disaster at the U.S. southern border.
The EU, meanwhile, vetoed a $55 billion aid proposal for Kiev.
Senior Ukrainian commanders have begun to demand answers from Zelensky on how the war with Russia could be sustained.
Zelensky’s fear “is that somebody, particularly from the military, might take a potshot,” Rodan noted, adding that the Ukrainian leader “fears that the next step will be a coup.”
Military chief Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi has emerged as Zelensky’s top nemesis from within.
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