After weeks of finger-pointing, rhetorical gamesmanship and intra-GOP high jinks, Congress managed to avoid a federal government shutdown over the weekend by passing a 45-day stopgap funding package. President Joe Biden wasted no time signing it into law.
For supporters of additional military aid to Ukraine, the continuing resolution was a bitter pill to swallow. Despite last-minute lobbying from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the law doesn’t include more aid for Kyiv’s war effort against Russia. With limited time available, Congress was forced to choose between keeping the government operating and haggling over more money for Ukraine. The fact that lawmakers opted for the former was seen by some in the commentariat as a betrayal of Ukraine. Biden, who requested $24 billion in supplemental appropriations for Ukraine, immediately took to the podium to press for another tranche of aid: “We cannot under any circumstance allow America’s support for Ukraine to be interrupted.”
There is a tendency for us humans to extrapolate from a single event. Just because Washington punted Ukraine aid for another day doesn’t mean Congress won’t debate the matter again before the year is out. It wouldn’t be surprising if staffers in the inner confines of Capitol Hill already have draft language worked up.
Even so, it’s indisputable that war fatigue is setting in. If Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive was making noticeable advances, then perhaps this fatigue wouldn’t be as big of a problem as it is today. But the reality is that Russia’s defensive lines, consisting of minefields that are as much as 10 miles deep in some places along the front, have done an effective enough job holding off the Ukrainian assault. According to The New York Times, Russia has actually gained more territory this year — 188 square miles, an area roughly 80% the size of Chicago — than Ukraine has. While it’s impossible to pinpoint Ukrainian casualties with a high degree of accuracy, the latest U.S. assessment is that about 70,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed since the war began (the Russians have lost even more men). Those numbers have obviously gone up, perhaps considerably, in the previous two months.
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