If Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) can ever get his House in order, some continuing aid for Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia may be forthcoming, as leading Republicans on the Senate side are in favor of expanding such help.
“I would not leave anything off the table,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on Sept. 19 in response to a question on whether the U.S. should consider providing Lockheed Martin [LMT] F-35s to Ukraine to help it achieve air dominance, end the war of attrition, and push Russia back to its borders. “I would not rule anything out. Given a few more tools, Ukraine could be at the [Crimean] coastline by now.”
The U.S. is to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s, but the latter may not give Ukraine air dominance. Lawmakers, however, have raised concerns about tech transfer of the F-35 to Ukraine, training Ukrainian pilots in a more sophisticated NATO-employed aircraft, and about the F-35 getting shot down and falling into Russian hands.
Without air dominance, Ukraine would have to fall back on long range ground attacks to repel Russian forces. This summer, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) introduced a bipartisan resolution urging the Biden administration to provide the Lockheed Martin [LMT]-built ATACMS missiles to Ukraine (Defense Daily, June 9).
Wicker said that Ukraine needs “the right kind of ATACMS, the long range, singular ATACMS.” The 500-pound unitary warhead, GPS-guided ATACMS variant has a range of 190 miles.
“It’s bewildering to me that we’ve slow walked the whole thing,” Wicker said. “Give Ukraine the tools it needs to continue winning.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense (SAC-D) panel, said on Sept. 19 that she favors ATACMS for Ukraine but that she is unsure about F-35s.
“I think so far we’ve done a good job helping protect democracy in that part of the world,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), the chairman of SAC-D, said on Sept. 19. “I just think we need to have an adequate package that will help them [Ukraine] be successful.”
On Sept. 19, House Republicans failed to muster the needed votes to advance their fiscal 2024 defense appropriations bill to a House floor vote.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a SAC-D member, told reporters on Sept. 19 that House Republicans picked “the worst possible time” to delay passage of a defense package for Ukraine, given the country’s ongoing counteroffensive.
Asked what systems he favors providing Ukraine that it has not received already, Murphy replied, “I worry just as much about the economic and political health of the country.”
Russian President Vladimir “Putin’s hope is to weaken the country [Ukraine] so badly that eventually the economy and the government collapse,” he said. “I think the [Biden] administration has been very nimble in getting Ukraine what they need. To the extent that they take their time, it’s always for good reason to make sure that Ukraine has the training before they have the system and to make sure that we’re able to make plans to backfill so we don’t compromise our own security.”
“I’m as forward leaning on supporting Ukraine as you can get, but I also know that my first obligation is to make sure that we don’t empty out our own stocks so that we can’t defend ourselves or our NATO allies,” Murphy said.