Kiev's botched counteroffensive has prompted the US to reconsider its policy of providing military assistance to Ukraine, David T. Pyne, an EMP Task Force scholar and former US Department of Defense officer, told Sputnik.
The size and rate of US military aid to the Kiev regime has drastically decreased, according to statistics.
The most recent package of assistance, the 48th of its kind, amounted to a mere $200 million, the same as the sum recorded in 2021 prior to the commencement of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine.
According to him, it was done because the Republican Party "was elected to majority control of the US House of Representatives and then House Speaker Kevin
McCarthy had declared before the election there would be no more blank check for Ukraine if the Republicans took control of the House."
"This aid was the amount the Biden administration believed was necessary to fully support Ukraine’s military and financial needs through the end of fiscal year 2023 ending in September 2023. There is simply not very much money left which has been appropriated by Congress last year to give to Ukraine," Pyne added.
He recalled that the White House "has just presented Congress with a $106 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Palestine totaling $61.4 billion for Ukraine alone which is the amount it views Ukraine will need to continue fighting Biden’s proxy war against Russia through the end of fiscal year 2024 through next September."
"Senior Western government leaders and intelligence officials are confronted with the stark reality that Ukraine has exhausted its counteroffensive capabilities and thus its forces must be redeployed to more defensible positions to guard against an expected Russian winter offensive which they believe could succeed in taking back significant amounts of Ukrainian territory over the next few to several months," Pyne noted.
He argued that while Kiev will continue to present a "wish list" for Western weapons, the West’s willingness to supply them “will depend both on how they think Russia might respond to providing those additional weapon systems an on whether the US and its NATO allies have sufficient weapons in their stockpiles to do so.”
Touching upon a current decrease in deliveries of armored vehicles to Ukraine from the West, Pyne suggested that Western leaders "understand Ukraine is very unlikely to be able to retake additional territory from Russia due to the fact that it has suffered catastrophic losses during and previous to its counteroffensive and that it will most certainly fail to achieve its military objectives."
Asked whether there will be a decrease or increase in US military supplies to Ukraine in the near future, he said, "assuming a Ukraine aid package is approved by Congress which is roughly the amount which the Biden administration has requested, I do not believe we will see either an increase or decrease in the US military supplies being provided by the Biden administration."
Despite extensive military assistance from the West, Kiev's counteroffensive, which began in early June, proved to be a resounding failure, resulting in the loss of over 90,000 Ukrainian soldiers.
Shortly after Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine, the United States and its allies stepped up their military aid to Kiev. Moscow has repeatedly warned that NATO countries are "playing with fire" by supplying arms to the Kiev regime, which the Kremlin said adds to prolonging the conflict in Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov emphasized that any shipment of weapons to Kiev would be considered a legitimate target for Russian forces.