The Daily - Is $60 Billion Enough to Save Ukraine?

Episode Date: April 24, 2024

Lawmakers approved a giant new tranche of support for Ukraine late last night after a tortured passage through the U.S. Congress, where it was nearly derailed by right-wing resistance in the House.Marc Santora, a Times reporter in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, explains what effect the money could have, given Ukraine’s increasing desperation on the battlefield.Guest: Marc Santora, who covers Ukraine for The New York Times.Background reading: The aid package drew overwhelming bipartisan support, reflecting broad consensus.The vote to resume U.S. military support was met with relief in Ukraine.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily. Late last night, a long-delayed aid package for Ukraine passed its final hurdle in Congress, throwing the embattled country a $60 billion lifeline. But given Ukraine's desperation on the battlefield, will that be enough to save it? Today, my colleague Mark Santora explains. It's Wednesday, April 24th. So Mark, last night, after many, many months, the U.S. Congress finally approved an aid package to Ukraine. It passed in the Senate just before 10 p.m.

And, of course, it's very, very substantial, billions and billions of dollars. But we also know that the war is not going well at all for the Ukrainians right now. You've been in Ukraine covering this war since the beginning in 2022. You're in Kiev right now. So my question for you is this. What does all of this money mean for Ukraine at this point in the war? Is it going to make a difference given the state of things? 100% it's going to make a difference. And the Ukrainians have been waiting for months and months for this news. $60 billion, of which $46 billion is military aid, basically is the equivalent of all that the United States has given Ukraine over the past two years in total.

So it's a lot of money. It's a lot of supplies that can buy a lot of what Ukraine needs. But they need it right now because the situation across the front has been turning increasingly grim for the Ukrainians who find themselves outmanned and outgunned. talked about the war on the show. And, you know, I've been reading your coverage, our colleagues' coverage, and it looks like a very desperate situation for the Ukrainians. Remind us why that is. Right. So first of all, if we just step back a little. First year of the war was one that started with shock at the breadth of what Russia was trying to do, invade and capture a nation of 40 million people, the largest in Europe. And then it was about Russian failure and Ukrainian success in pushing back that invasion, first protecting the capital, then reclaiming like 50 percent of the country. Right. That was the David and Goliath story. That was year one. Yeah, exactly. And I think Ukraine surprised the world. they surprised the Kremlin,

and maybe even they surprised themselves a bit. But the year ended on sort of this optimistic note that Ukraine cannot just hold their own, but they can take the fight to the Russians. And then we get to year two. And year two is this year of ghastly violence, but very little change along the front lines. Russia tries to do an offensive, they fail. Ukraine tries to do an offensive, they fail. Russia, again, they try and gain more land and largely fail. So you have this sort of back and forth going on. But at the end of year two, something changes. For the first time in the course of the war, USAID first slows, and then it basically stops. So as we get into year three now, we see the Ukrainians, they're not just stuck, but they're basically fighting to hold on for dear life.

And what does it look like right now to be holding on for dear life? Describe that for us. So, Sabrina, there are three main challenges. And the first, most critical, and probably the most obvious, is a shortage of weapons and ammunition for those weapons. It's pretty simple in war. The side that can't shoot back generally loses. And when we would go on visits to the front line over the course of the winter and then into the spring here, what we found were commanders who were rationing their shells, they had maybe one for every three Russian shells in the late winter. And then it went to one for every five

Russian shells. And more recently, it's one to 10. So they found themselves, you know, not just in a position of being outgunned, but outgunned to such a degree that they might have to fall back. Simply put, running out of bullets. Which is the most basic building block of war. Yeah, and this war in particular, 80% of the deaths have been from direct fire, from artillery and rockets. And the way the Russians fight, sending wave after wave of soldiers

to attack Ukrainian trenches and fortifications, the main way you stop these waves of attacks is kill as many of the attackers as you can. And without artillery, you simply can't kill enough people. And so eventually their positions will become overrun and they'll have to fall back. And in the past couple months, we've started to really see that and the impact it's having on the battlefield as Ukraine loses territory. Okay, so that's artillery. What else?

What I think almost every Ukrainian would tell you what they desperately need are air defense systems and the munitions that make those systems work. So when we're talking about air defense systems, we're talking about a whole range of stuff from basically guys on the back of pickup trucks with machine guns who are searching for Russian drones in the sky to the most sophisticated air defense systems that only America can provide, which are called the Patriot batteries. So Russia's most sophisticated missiles fly like 10 times the speed of sound. That's where you need something like the Patriot. And these are the only thing Ukraine has really that can shoot down Russian ballistic missiles. So these are like defending the skies, basically.

Like it's very, very dangerous to not have them. It's not just dangerous for the people in the cities and towns. It's really dangerous for the troops on the front line because the other thing air defense systems give you is it prevents or at least it deters Russian fighter pilots from flying into the area where these things are operating. So once these air defenses basically ran out, Russian fighter bombers are now basically strafing the front line, flying closer and closer and dropping these massive bombs onto Ukrainian fortifications and also some of these towns and cities that had been out of range of Russian artillery. And Mark, what are we seeing as a result of Ukraine being kind of naked in the sky like this? Well, on the front, it's opened up this whole new challenge because it's allowed Russian warplanes

to basically dip into Russia's almost limitless stock of one-ton, two-ton big bombs that were built ages ago, but that they can strap wings to and guide in systems and obliterate Ukrainian fortifications. I mean, I'll just tell you personally, you know, whenever you go into a combat zone, it's the noise that strikes you first. But the first time I heard these things, it shocked me. We were outside Avdiivka, maybe two miles away, and you just heard this thunder.

And Russia was dropping at the peak of the battle for Avdivka, something like 250 of these in 48 hours, each of them weighing and loaded with more than one ton of explosives. It's really hard to get your head around just how big this is. So the introduction of these en masse along the front has really changed the dynamic and presented all kinds of problems for the Ukrainians. Avdiivka, of course, being the town that Russia took this winter after practically obliterating it. Exactly. And so then when you take this all together, the introduction of these heavy bombs, the lack of defense against ballistic missiles, what you see is it's starting to take a growing toll on civilians as well. ballistic missiles, what you see is it's starting to take a growing toll on civilians as well. The UN estimated that in March, we saw a 20% increase in the number of civilian deaths compared to just the month before. And they attributed that mostly to widespread and more successful Russian aerial strikes. So this is really just a disaster for Ukraine, right? I

mean, it's running out of almost everything. And this has put it in kind of a defensive crouch. It's really a complete turnaround from where it was at the beginning of the war. What's the second challenge Ukraine has been dealing with? Well, this is a challenge that affects really the entire country, and that has to do with the power grid. The ability of Russia to target and target successfully a number of key Ukrainian power generating facilities has had a devastating impact on Ukraine's ability to supply power, particularly in the east. We just came back from Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has completely destroyed every single thermal power plant the city had to produce its own power. So it's basically trying to bring power from across the country to provide at least a minimal level of energy for critical infrastructure like water and sewage. And people have, you know, sometimes as little as two, three hours of power a day.

And then if you just, you know, pull back a bit, you look across the country. And I met with the head of one of the major power utilities here who said that these strikes, starting on March 22nd really, have been more successful and done more damage to the Ukrainian power grid than even the strikes that occurred in the first winter of war, which, if you remember, Sabrina, those almost took down the grid and caused the country to go into a blackout. So Ukraine is in a really tough spot when it comes to power generation. So this all adds up to a pretty serious problem for Ukraine, right? I mean, lack of electricity can really cripple a country's economy.

Absolutely, Sabrina. And, you know, these power outages, they affect civilians across the country, which brings us to probably our third biggest challenge for Ukraine, which is people. They need soldiers. And this is, by all accounts, the deadliest war since the end of the Second World War. Even conservative estimates put the number of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers killed and wounded at over half a million. The Russians are dying probably at a rate of maybe three to one, according to most analysts, although these numbers are fuzzy.

So you have a situation where you have this incredibly deadly front, and you have people across the country who still, by and large, supporting the military, doing what they can, sewing blankets, donating, building drones, volunteering in many ways. But a lot of people are really just afraid, afraid that if they go volunteer or go into the military, they're going to be put into the infantry right away and then rushed off to the front and put in a trench. And quite frankly, it's really scary. So that is a big problem for Ukraine. If they're not getting the soldiers at the front, then they're not really able to continue their war.

So what are they doing to combat that? Well, the main way is something they call mobilization that we would probably call a draft, which is basically recruiting everyone between a certain age to serve in the military. But it was created back in the Soviet era. There are ways that people find around it, for instance, by not registering. Other people have been found to sort of pay bribes to get out of it. A few thousand have fled the country to avoid it.

Basically, it was just a mess. And so the Zelensky government knew they needed to rewrite and change this law to give it a bit more order, but that was politically risky because this is a country that does not have a lot of young men. So what's ended up happening is you have this situation where people who signed up more than two years ago are still fighting on the front with very little rest. And the average age of the soldier in the trenches is now 40. Wow, 40. That's really up there for a soldier.

Precisely. And the government here was really resistant and afraid of throwing its youngest generation and losing them in this war. But on the flip side, most people here really feel this is an existential war, a struggle for their survival. So if they don't win it, there will be no society for these young people worth growing up in. So earlier this month, President Zelensky relented and he lowered

the draft age from 27 to 25. So effectively broadening the pool of potential men he could draft as soldiers, right? So upping his numbers. Exactly. That's the goal. But again, these things take time to translate from legislation and changes to the battlefield. Which, of course, brings us to this moment and the passage of the aid through Congress.

Right. And the key question is what's coming? And perhaps more importantly, how fast is it going to get here? We'll be right back. So the aid package finally passed through Congress. It's real. What does it look like in practice? I mean, what are the actual things that Ukraine is going to be getting? Well, Sabrina, as we're taping this, we don't know precisely, but we do know broadly what's going to be in these first batch of stuff coming here, batch of stuff coming here, which is, number one, the ammunition for the artillery. Number two,

the air defense missiles and interceptors for the air defense systems. But most critically, more than each individual thing, is quantity. They're going to get resupplies in the kind of quantity they desperately need. As much as each particular thing they need is important, it's also important that they get a lot of them. So essentially, they're hoping that in this aid package, they'll be able to replenish their ammunition, their artillery, and take back control of their skies by getting some replenishments of those Patriot missiles that you were telling us about.

Precisely. To close the skies and basically repair and fortify and solidify what are currently fraying front lines that are in danger along multiple points of the front. And what else are they going to get? things they've asked for and wanted since the earliest months of the war, which are precision long-range missiles known as ATAKAMS. ATAKAMS? Yeah, ATAKAMS, it's an abbreviation, but it does what it sounds like, which is it attacks and it can attack at distance. And so what Ukraine has wanted desperately is to be able to hit Russia anywhere on Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, where Russian forces are currently based. And for the longest time throughout this war, Ukraine has kind of been having to fight with one hand tied behind its back. Russia can reach any corner of Ukraine, but Ukraine can't even hit Russia on every corner of their own country.

And the Biden administration for months and months worried that these weapons could be seen as escalatory in some way by Moscow. But I think the decision was made that Ukraine needs all it can at this moment in the fight. needs all it can at this moment in the fight. And Ukraine is hoping to use these weapons to go after some targets that have long been on their list, none more so than this bridge that connects Crimea to Russia. After Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, Putin, you know, this is for him the symbol of the connection between Crimea and Russia. And for Ukrainians, it's the exact opposite. They've tried twice now to take it out. They've blown up a truck bomb on it. They've sent maritime drones loaded with explosives to blow up under it.

They've done damage to it, but they haven't been able to take it out. And I think anyone who's watched this war knows that this, on the list of targets Ukraine has that they think could make a difference, this bridge is high up on that list. It would be important militarily, but also very important symbolically. Like Ukraine would actually be able to strike this important piece of infrastructure for the Russians. Exactly. Okay, so the Americans are actually relenting on their earlier skepticism and actually giving the Ukrainians something that is very precise and potentially damaging for Russia. Right. And the Biden administration has relented and is allowing Ukraine's allies in Europe to provide something else Ukraine desperately wanted, which are F-16 fighter jets. Now, these are not part of this military aid package, but it took a decision of the Biden administration to allow these fighter jets to be sent to Ukraine since they're American-made. And several European countries have already

committed to giving Ukraine dozens of these. And pilots, as we speak, have been training on them for months. We don't know when they're going to appear in the skies. Some people think by mid-late summer. But that will be another part of what Ukraine thinks is essential to have the kind of layered air defense that will allow it to finally protect its skies from these deadly and relentless bombardments. Okay, so the U.S. is replenishing supplies, but it's also sending stuff that they'd never sent before, including American-made F-16s through the Europeans. But what do we know about when it will actually get to Ukraine? Like, what's the timing here? Yeah, so again, this comes back to the question of quantity. I think, you know, most people believe

here we'll start to see things relatively quickly, that some of this is positioned in Poland already or in Europe. And so the minute after the president signs it, stuff will start moving. But it's a question really of how much they can get and how fast. So we talked earlier about shell hunger, this need of Ukrainian commanders to be able to at least start to match the number of shells the Russians have. And on an average day here, Ukraine can fire 10,000 rounds to Russia's 20,000 rounds. I mean, we're talking thousands and thousands of rounds every day, day after day. So some of it will move in quickly, but it's much harder to calculate

when it'll start to have a dynamic impact on the battlefield. But most people think it's probably a month or two before we really see this start to reshape the front line and the fight there, at least. So this is a pretty important moment and a real window of time in which the Russians could kind of take advantage of the Ukrainians not having the stuff yet, right? 100 percent. Russia, they know that this stuff is coming. And so now they, whatever plans they had, they might want to step up. The Ukrainian intelligence officials we talked to all think that this next month here is going to be particularly violent. There's going

to be things that probably go wrong for Ukraine. and they're trying to brace the public for that. But they also have this now, because of this aid bill passed by the U.S. chiefly, this sort of longer-term optimism that they know that they're going to stay in the fight whatever these next few weeks bring. And what are we seeing the Russians actually do? What's happening right now on the front? Yeah, so nobody I speak to thinks the fight's going to suddenly speed up somehow very dramatically and massive amounts of land will change hands. But the place right now where everyone is watching is a little hilltop town that before the war had maybe 15,000 people.

It is now maybe a few hundred left there that's been turned into basically a Ukrainian garrison just a few miles west of Bakhmut that serves as sort of a key to the eastern front in some ways, because if the Russians can manage to drive the Ukrainians out of there, it would give them these elevated heights to attack some of the last remaining Ukrainian fortified cities in the east. So Ukraine is potentially about to lose a key town to Russia. Right. And Russia is using the full arsenal, the advantage in ammunition and artillery, those big bombs they're dropping from warplanes, and their advantage in manpower, pouring 20,000 to 25,000 soldiers to take this

little town that's about five square miles wide. And President Zelensky believes that they're doing it because President Putin wants to have a victory before May 9th. And May 9th is this day that was traditionally meant to celebrate the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany, but that Putin has turned into this martial— Very patriotic display of Russian power, right? This is kind of how he projects his power in the country. And he wants to have a victory to show. Right. here for a moment. You know, we've talked a lot on the show about how the U.S. aid to Ukraine has never really been quite at a level where Ukraine could actually win the war, right? That

it stayed at this level where Ukraine doesn't lose, but isn't quite enough to actually help it win. I mean, Ukraine is in this terrible situation. Is this enough to really jolt it into a winning posture? What is this current tranche going to do? Well, Sabrina, first and foremost, what it's going to do is stop the bleeding to some degree. It's going to give Ukraine a better chance of preventing Russia from taking more territory. And I think it's really worth pausing here and remembering what Ukrainian defeat looks like. We don't have to guess. We've seen places where Russian soldiers occupied and then were driven out. And I've visited the mass graves

where those Russian soldiers murdered civilians, the torture chambers where they put civilians trying to get information from them. We know that the Russian army leaves a trail of destruction everywhere in its wake. So first and foremost, what the Ukrainians hope is that this robust aid package will allow them to stop the Russian advance and then give them time to regroup and rebuild so that going forward, they can take the fight back to the Russians. But that's part two. Part one is surviving. One thing that seems clear to me, you know, just from an American political context, is that this is probably it for American aid. I mean, this is likely the final package, like the end of the line. Do Ukrainians understand that? Well, I think before this long delay in the aid,

everyone was looking at a very specific date on the calendar, which was the American presidential election. Nobody's under any illusions that without American support, Ukraine would probably lose this war. They certainly couldn't win this war. And so I think, you know, when we say what's going to happen next, this is enough money to get through the next six months, it seems like, along with stepped up European aid and Ukraine's own domestic production. But I think that everyone is watching anxiously to see what happens in the American presidential election and then what impact that will have on American support for Ukraine in this war. And Mark, what about Ukrainians themselves? What are they saying? You talk to people around the country. It's remarkable how much this package has lifted

the spirits of people across the country who, quite frankly, have been going through some of the worst months since the earliest chaotic days of the war. But Sabrina, it's important to remember and not really be under any illusions here about just how hard it is for Ukrainians, not just the soldiers, but millions of civilians. I recently took a trip out to the city of Kharkiv, And even though there are still 1.3 million people there, they are now living under a level of bombardment we haven't seen since the first weeks of the war. And what we found in Kharkiv was the question of what's going to happen is not this meta question of how does the war turn out? It is, how do I survive the day? We drove around with paramedics,

firefighters, and we saw block after block with, you know, buildings, all their windows shattered and blown out, some scarred with shrapnel, others reduced to rubble. It's a big city, so even with a relentless missile bombardment, there's still activity. People amazingly go to work and go to coffee shops. But at the same time, they go to bed each night with the knowledge that the next missile might fall either on them or someone they love. So, Sabrina, at its most basic level, what this aid does for Ukrainians who on a daily basis are worried about what's going to happen the next day is it allows them to survive, to fight and to protect their cities from Russian missile strikes and also to, they hope, stabilize the situation on the front. situation on the front. But what this package doesn't do is tell us the path forward for how Ukraine can achieve what they really want, their ultimate goal, which is driving the Russians from their land and securing the kind of victory that is both lasting and just in their minds.

Mark, thank you. Thank you, Sabrina. We'll be right back. Here's what else you should know today. On Tuesday, in a major ruling, the Federal Trade Commission banned companies from using non-compete agreements that prevent their employees from working for rival companies. The FTC argued that non-competes, which affect at least a fifth of private sector workers, hold down wages by making it hard to switch jobs, a reliable way of securing a raise. And during his second day of testimony in the hush money trial of Donald Trump, David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, confirmed his role in what prosecutors have described as conspiracy to promote Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and damage the campaigns of Trump's rivals. of Trump's rivals. On the stand, Pecker recalled a 2015 meeting in which Trump asked how Pecker could help his campaign. In response, Pecker told Trump, quote, I will be your eyes and ears.

Soon after, in coordination with Trump, Pecker said he began to use the National Enquirer to purchase and then kill off negative stories about Trump, including claims that Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock and had had an affair with a former Playboy model. Pecker is expected to resume his testimony tomorrow. Today's episode was produced by Shannon Lin, Eric Krupke, and Michael Simon Johnson, with help from Alex Yum. It was edited by Lisa Chow and Brendan Klinkenberg, contains original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, and Alicia Baitu, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly.

Special thanks to Katie Edmondson. That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you tomorrow.