Now that Washington has green-lit another $60 billion for its beloved Ukraine war, it’s a good time to put forth an excellent question that House Republicans in particular should have already had an answer to, but certainly don’t: What now?
How long is the money supposed to last? How much time does it buy? To what degree will it assist Ukraine in keeping Russia at bay?
Marc Santora, a New York Times reporter based in Kyiv, did a decent job admitting this little problem on Wednesday’s episode of “The Daily” podcast: “What this package doesn’t do,” he said, “is tell us the path forward for how Ukraine can achieve what they really want, their ultimate goal, which is driving the Russians from their land and securing the kind of victory that is both lasting and just in their minds.”
As of just a few weeks ago, the U.S. had dedicated nearly $115 billion to Ukraine. Now, following Speaker Mike Johnson’s little chat with Biden White House officials (plus a traitorous nudge from Donald Trump), that number has ballooned to around $175 billion — and counting! That’s nothing to say of the half-trillion dollars it’s currently estimated to rebuild the country once this is all over, a number that just as surely climbs by the second.
To make things a little more interesting, Ukraine is quickly running out of men to fight its war. President Volodymyr Zelensky lowered the forced military service age from 27 to 25. More than half a
