Understanding the conflict one year on.
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European lawmakers are issuing increasingly bleak warnings about the future of the war in Ukraine and the continent’s security as a $60 billion U.S. aid package for Kyiv continues to languish on Capitol Hill and the war is set to enter its third year later this month.
European lawmakers are issuing increasingly bleak warnings about the future of the war in Ukraine and the continent’s security as a $60 billion U.S. aid package for Kyiv continues to languish on Capitol Hill and the war is set to enter its third year later this month.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, Washington has welcomed a steady stream of lawmakers, government ministers, and heads of state from Europe amid transatlantic efforts to coordinate military and humanitarian support for Ukraine. But there has been a palpable ratcheting up in the intensity and urgency of their message.
“You can’t help but wonder what has happened here. We seem to have drifted apart,” said Diljá Mist Einarsdóttir, chair of the Icelandic parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.
Einarsdóttir and a delegation of six other chairs of the parliamentary foreign affairs committees of the Baltic and Nordic states spoke with a small group of journalists on Thursday morning as the U.S. Senate voted to advance a stand-alone aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. It remains unclear whether the bill will be able to garner enough votes to pass the Senate and House.
A bipartisan effort to combine the aid with an immigration reform package was shot down by Senate Republicans on Wednesday evening after former U.S. President Donald Trump urged his party to reject the legislation.
“Dear Republican Senators of America,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, following the vote. “Ronald Reagan, who helped millions of us to win back our freedom and independence, must be turning in his grave today. Shame on you.”
Dire warnings from European lawmakers come as Ukraine has stalled on the battlefield and Russia is making significant investments in defense spending and production. In the early days of the war, Moscow appeared to be on the back foot as its economy was pummeled with international sanctions and its armed forces struggled through a poorly planned invasion.
But two years on, the Russian economy is projected to grow, albeit marginally, in the coming year fueled by a significant boost in defense spending. One-third of the country’s state budget has been allocated for defense in 2024, and arms manufacturers have been urged to work around the clock.
“If we cannot manage, together with the U.S., to stop Russia in Ukraine, it’s a matter of time if it is a war against NATO in general, and that will be much higher cost,” said Aron Emilsson, chair of the Swedish parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.
Emilsson’s Latvian counterpart, Rihards Kols, said he was struck by the lack of urgency in Washington about the war. “I got the notion that the war in Ukraine is something very far away, distant from the U.S.,” said Kols, who noted that by comparison, Latvian public discourse had been dominated by the possibility of a wider war.
Last month, top military officials in Sweden and the United Kingdom warned their populations to prepare for a potential war.
Zygimantas Pavilionis, chair of the Lithuanian parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, who has made several trips to Washington since the beginning of the war, said that the reception he and his colleagues get on Capitol Hill is “getting worse with every visit.” Pavilionis, like many lawmakers and officials from the Baltic states, sought to sound the alarm about Russia’s revanchist intentions long before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “Our argument is simple: If you don’t want another Pearl Harbor, you better listen to us,” he said.
Ahead of this week’s visit, the delegation reached out to the offices of around 20 congressional Republicans who have to varying degrees been skeptical of U.S. aid for Ukraine. Just three offices responded, Kols said.
The visit follows a trip by the chairs of the parliamentary foreign affairs committees from six NATO member states last month who brought a similarly stark message. “The reality is the U.S. also needs a wake-up call,” said Alicia Kearns, chair of the U.K. Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee, the Hill reported.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is also in Washington this week and is set to meet with President Joe Biden and members of Congress to make the case for continued support to Ukraine. In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, he laid out his case about the dangers of a Russian victory.
“We have to do our utmost to prevent Russia from winning. If we don’t, we might soon wake up in a world even more unstable, threatening and unpredictable than it was during the Cold War,” he wrote.
The United States has provided more than $75 billion in aid to Kyiv since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, of which $46 billion has been military support. Analysts have warned that a collapse in U.S. support would deal a significant blow to Ukraine.
“We are not able to fill the gap if the U.S. pulls out,” said Ine Eriksen Soreide, chair of the Norwegian parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, who stressed that there would be wide-ranging ramifications if Russia were to emerge victorious. “If [Russian President Vladimir] Putin wins the war, it would embolden him; it would embolden China; it would embolden Iran; it would embolden [North Korea],” Soreide said.
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