Ukraine's facing a perfect storm of problems, and a vote in Congress could make or break its war with Russia

• The House is expected to soon vote on a long-awaited aid package including support for Ukraine and Israel.

• The aid would be life-saving for Ukraine, helping resolve air defense and ammo issues.

• Ukraine's current condition is dire, experts say, and this moment is critical for its future.

Ukraine currently faces a grim outlook. Its forces are lacking sufficient numbers, low on just about everything, fatigued from two years of war, and in some places, barely holding on. Russia, on the other hand, has rebuilt its strength and is launching brash and devastating attacks that could give it further momentum.

It's perhaps the most perilous moment for Ukraine since the beginning of the war, and it could either be fixed or worsened by US lawmakers in Washington DC, some of whom have been holding assistance hostage for months now.

"It's a remarkable situation that the US really has tremendous agency in determining the course of this year," Frederick Kagan, a senior fellow and the director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute, explained to Business Insider.

"And it comes down to, really, this package being so critical," he added.

Kagan's assessment is in line with other experts and analysts who have been increasingly sounding the alarms on the importance of US aid to Ukraine. In recent weeks, it seems concerns have spiked, as Ukraine feels the effects of diminished US support.

Many observers of the war agree: Ukraine's fate rests on US support, and the future of that critical assistance rests in the hands of Congress, which is about to put it to an important vote.

Ukraine faces serious problems that this aid package could fix

It's been over six months since a $110 billion foreign aid package, which included roughly $61.4 billion for Ukraine, stalled in Congress. In the following months, Ukraine has urged the US to send more assistance, raising concerns about ammo shortages and Russia going on the advance against an ill-equipped Ukrainian defense.

As debates in Congress on aid continued into this year, Ukraine's situation got progressively worse. Now, potential scenarios that didn't seem likely months ago — such as the collapse of Ukrainian lines — are becoming plausible, Kagan explained.

The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in DC that is focused intently on the conflict, has been documenting recent Russian advances and consistently assessing that depleted US aid is severely hurting Ukraine's ability to defend itself.

Ukraine is currently facing an increasingly bleak situation on the battlefield. They're low on artillery shells needed to keep Russian ground forces at bay, and they also lack sufficient air defenses, both systems and ammunition.

Additionally, manpower shortages are stretching the lines thin. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a law Tuesday that is aimed at overhauling mobilization rules, effectively making it possible to bring even older troops into a war already being fought by soldiers with an average age over 40.

And while Ukraine's been facing most of these issues for a months now, it has gotten severely worse — and continues to each day US assistance isn't approved. This aid package, however would provide immediate relief, experts argue.

"It will be life-saving," Mick Ryan, a retired Australian Army major general and strategist, told BI just weeks after visiting Ukraine, calling the planned aid "an enormous shot in the arm," and not just materially, but also for morale.

If the stalled aid package is approved, it remains to seen how the rollout of aid will go. The US will likely pull out all the stops to get the most urgent requirements for the next few months — such as artillery, air defenses, and electronic warfare equipment, for example — to Ukraine as soon as possible. But it has got to get through Congress first.

While US lawmakers have spent months debating Ukraine aid, Russia has been given a golden opportunity. Not only are its forces on the offensive, but it's been given time to reconstitute for future offensive operations. As the Russian war machine fires up, the army is putting pressure on Ukraine's defenses, seeing where it can potentially break through and seize territory.

"Russia is slowly building up its forces for future offensive operations in Ukraine," according to Franz-Stefan Gady, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. It continues, he explained, "to conduct probing attacks, intertwined with larger-scale assaults," to set itself up with certain tactical advantages for operations later this year.

But there is also a clear immediate effect. "The Russian military has been able to steadily press ahead and capture smaller swaths of territory in recent weeks," Gady said. The primary goal at the moment, though, appears to be to deplete Ukrainian forces.

An element of Russia's recent attacks have been air strikes on Ukraine's critical energy and defense infrastructure.

Along with slowly grinding down Ukrainian defenses, "Russia is also conducting a sustained campaign of air and missile strikes against critical infrastructure and other targets in various parts of Ukraine in an attempt to deplete Ukrainian air defenses," likely an attempt to "give Russian airpower more freedom to maneuver to engage Ukrainian targets at the front line in support of larger-scale ground operations later this year," Gady said.

As Ukraine struggles, Russia has achieved certain manpower, industrial, and materiel advantages. The top American general in Europe said last week that Russia has just about "grown back" its military strength to what it was when it invaded, while experts like Ryan have said it is "more dangerous" now than it was then.

"You can't deny that the effectiveness of the Russians has improved since the beginning of the war," Ryan said. There are still weaknesses and vulnerabilities, but ultimately, "two years of war has actually made the Russian military probably a better organization than what it was when it started."

And the longer that the war against Ukraine goes, the more they're going to learn. Experts like Kagan have warned that the Russians will pose a greater threat to NATO if they win this war.

Ukraine is stuck waiting to see how things turn out as it fights to survive

When House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson unveiled the long-awaited foreign aid package earlier this week and announced a vote possibly as soon as this weekend, he was met with expected resistance from some of the usual staunch Republican opposers, who called on Johnson to promote a stronger bill on border security along with the foreign aid assistance.

Such a deal has long been the proposed compromise between Democrats and Republicans. One massive, bipartisan immigration and foreign aid bill notably failed in Senate back in February. A $95 billion bill for security assistance to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, however, passed in the Senate shortly after.

Johnson's planned foreign aid package comes in at a similar cost and includes about $61 billion for Ukraine. More than a third of that would be directed toward replenishing weapons and ammunition for the US military.

Aid to Ukraine is complicated, and the assistance packages have typically included military aid, humanitarian assistance, money for Ukraine's government, and funds for US operations related to assisting Ukraine. In the short term after a package is approved, the US transfers both US weapons and some purchased from allies to Ukraine. It also gets the funds to replenish its stockpiles and buy new weapons from defense contractors.

Both the Pentagon and the White House have long explained to Congress that these aid packages create and fuel defense production jobs across the country.

In the long term, the provided US aid allows Ukraine to purchase weapons which may need to be manufactured and, therefore, take a bit more time to secure.

Complications aside, the packages, like the one in the House, have profound effects. If this assistance passes, Kagan said, there's high confidence "that the Ukrainians would be able to slow and ultimately stop this Russian offensive and then very likely would be able to conduct counteroffensive operations to regain territory" likely next year.

Where US support for Ukraine goes from here

Whether the aid package passes or not, it's quite clear that American lawmakers — and voters — remain divided on the US role in supporting Ukraine.

That conversation "is part of a larger debate about America's place in the world," Ryan said. Those who may not see the need for the US to be involved in the security concerns of other countries, he said, may be short-sighted, overlooking the destructive consequences if Ukraine loses.

And a loss for Ukraine is a very real possibility. CIA Director William Burns said that without aid "there is a very real risk that the Ukrainians could lose on the battlefield by the end of 2024," and even Zelenskyy has acknowledged retreat and a loss could be the outcome without further support. The ramifications of that could be dire.

Experts, officials, and analysts have long warned that if Russian President Vladimir Putin is ultimately successful in achieving victory in Ukraine, it could have serious consequences, not only for the people of Ukraine, but for others globally. A win for Russia could embolden it to take further aggressive action and potentially encourage others, like China and North Korea, to throw their weight around, stirring further tensions and conflict.

A victorious Russia could take its war towards NATO, possibly leading to a devastating and large-scale conflict directly involving the US.

"Americans really need to understand that we are standing on a fundamental precipice," Kagan said. Cutting off assistance to Ukraine, which could lead to its loss against Russia, will not only jeopardize American security, he said, but also "actually significantly increase the likelihood that Americans will have to enter wars ourselves."

Earlier this week, he doubled-down on that point, writing that "the US thus has only two real choices today. It can quickly resume providing military aid to let Ukraine stabilize the front lines near the current locations. Or it can let the Russians defeat the Ukrainian military and drive toward the NATO borders from the Black Sea to central Poland.  There is no third option."

Johnson himself told reporters something similar on Wednesday, saying that, "to put it bluntly, I would rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys."

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