The fall of the front-line Ukrainian city of Avdiivka to Russian forces has intensified U.S. reactions from Democrats and Republicans alike on whether $60 billion in military aid for Ukraine — stalled in Congress — could allow Kyiv to push back Russian advances and steal Moscow’s momentum.
A White House statement said President Joe Biden tied the loss of the stronghold of Avdiivka in the southeastern Donetsk region to the stalled U.S. aid for Ukraine in a phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday.
The Ukrainian withdrawal from Avdiivka — almost two years to the day since Russia invaded Ukraine — came “after Ukrainian soldiers had to ration ammunition due to dwindling supplies as a result of congressional inaction, resulting in Russia’s first notable gains in months,” the statement read.
Russia’s defense ministry said its troops had advanced 8.6 km (5.3 miles) in that part of the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, and that Russian troops were pressing forward after a deadly urban battle that has left the city a nearly depopulated wreck.
In the weeks ahead of Avdiivka’s fall, The Associated Press had interviewed over a dozen Ukrainian commanders, including heads of artillery units, in the war’s most intense combat zones.
They said shortages, which have always plagued Ukrainian forces since the full-scale invasion, grew acute last autumn. They said that dwindling stockpiles of Western-supplied long-range artillery had inhibited Ukrainian forces from striking high-value targets deep behind Russian lines, where heavy equipment and personnel have accumulated.
Despite the overwhelming support of the package by most Democrats and almost half the Republicans, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson insists he won’t be “rushed” into approving the $95.3 billion foreign aid package approved by a bipartisan Senate last week that includes the $60 billion in aid for Ukraine.
Johnson has said he personally supports aid for Ukraine, but he leads a far-right majority that is more closely aligned with former President Donald Trump’s isolationist ideology and, increasingly, a hands-off approach to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression, the AP reports.
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Democratic Senator Michael Bennet advocated for the aid saying, “just get it over there.”
“They’ve just had their first defeat, the Ukrainians, since last May, partly as a result of the fact that they are outgunned 10-to-1 by the Russians. We can help solve that problem for them and we should,” Bennet said.
But Senator J.D. Vance, a Republican and ally of Trump, said “the problem in Ukraine … is that there’s no clear end point” and that the U.S. doesn’t make enough weapons to support wars in eastern Europe, the Middle East and “potentially a contingency in East Asia.”
If the package goes through, “that is not going to fundamentally change the reality on the battlefield,” Vance argued, pointing out that America’s manufacturing capacity has its limits.
“Can we send the level of weaponry we’ve sent for the last 18 months?” he asked. “We simply cannot. No matter how many checks the U.S. Congress writes, we are limited there.”
In an interview with CNN’s State of the Union Sunday former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney said Congress should pass the bipartisan bill Ukrainians need so urgently and added House Speaker Johnson has the power to make that happen.
“If he wanted to, today, announce he is going to call the House of Representatives back into session he could put the bill that has already passed the Senate onto the floor of the House for a vote tomorrow, to be on Joe Biden’s desk by tomorrow night and the aid to be flown to Ukraine.”
At a global security conference in Munich on Saturday, Zelenskyy urged allies to plug a shortage of weapons and expressed hope that the U.S. Congress would make a “wise decision” in approving a delayed large aid package for Ukraine.
He praised his troops for “exhausting” Russian forces in Avdiivka, and suggested the withdrawal was partly caused by a lack of weapons.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities said Sunday they had opened an investigation into alleged shootings by Russian forces of six unarmed Ukrainian soldiers in the seized city of Avdiivka, and two at a village in the same region.
The Donetsk prosecutor’s office said a video fragment taken by a drone showed a Russian soldier shooting two captured Ukrainian soldiers at close range at the village of Vesele.
“Not wanting to leave the prisoners alive, the occupier kills them with automatic weapons,” the office added, without saying when the incident had occurred.
Reuters could not immediately verify the video or other details of the account by the Ukrainian prosecutors and military.
Ukraine downed 12 Shahed drones, a Su-34 fighter-bomber and a Kh-59 missile Sunday morning, according to its air force. The plane was shot down over eastern Ukraine, while the drones and the missile were downed in Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava, Kirovohrad, and Dnipro oblasts.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.