There Is No Good Plan B For U.S. Aid To Ukraine, Allies Say

With Senate talks on a deal including aid to Ukraine on the brink of collapse, allies of the under-attack Eastern European nation say there is no other alternative, effective method to deliver more U.S. aid soon.

“The U.S. doesn’t get a do-over if Republicans keep blocking aid to Ukraine — those Ukrainians killed because we stopped sending them ammunition certainly won’t get a second chance,” said Doug Klain, nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and policy analyst for Razom for Ukraine, an advocacy group.

Alternative pathways to delivering more cash and weapons to Ukraine’s war efforts, including using money seized from Russian governmental assets and resurrecting the lend-lease program the United States used to supply the United Kingdom before the former’s entry into World War II, could ultimately be helpful — but they simply won’t reach the country in time.

Ukraine aid got cut from a bill passed in September to temporarily keep the government open. Since then, its advocates in President Joe Biden’s administration and on Capitol Hill have been looking in vain for another “must-pass” bill to which to attach it.

The hope had been that the White House’s $100-billion-plus national security proposal, including about $60 billion in Ukraine aid, would fit the bill by linking GOP priorities on border security and aid to Israel with a Democratic one in Ukraine. (Many Democrats support aid to Israel, and many Republicans back aid to Ukraine, but each party’s base voters are more supportive of one than the other .)

Those talks are on life support, at best, amid former president Donald Trump’s work to convince Republicans to scuttle a deal to prevent a Biden political victory. Even if a bill with border