Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that US military aid to Ukraine had not been stopped, comments that came a day after a leaked memo revealed Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a 90-day pause on most foreign aid.
“I am focused on military aid; it has not been stopped, thank God,” Zelensky said at a press conference with Moldovan President Maia Sandu, according to AP.
Rubio’s foreign aid pause, which had exemptions for Israel and Egypt, appears to only apply to programs under the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
While Ukraine receives some military aid through the State Department’s Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, the vast majority of the weapons it has received from the US have gone through the Pentagon under the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) and the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI).
The PDA allows the president to ship weapons directly to Ukraine, and the USAI allows the Pentagon to purchase arms for Ukraine. Before leaving office, President Biden approved a huge amount of both types of military aid to Ukraine, and there’s no sign that those shipments have been frozen.
A day before Rubio ordered the foreign aid freeze, the Pentagon said it wouldn’t impact military aid to Ukraine. “Security assistance to Ukraine is not subject to the restrictions of the recent foreign assistance order, as it only applies to development programs, not military support,” a Pentagon spokesman said, according to Voice of America.
Some non-military aid has gone through USAID, known as “budgetary aid,” which funds the Ukrainian government and pays for government services, salaries, and pensions. However, the last tranche of budgetary aid was released by the Biden administration at the end of December, and it’s unclear if that can be paused.
Will the curcle be unbroken?!…
The leading ruling regimes have brought Democracy to the edge. Modern democracies are failing as happened many times before in history. Maybe democracies only work in small tribal societies, where the members know and trust each other and know whom they trust and want to be their Chief. Big neoliberal economies and Democracy don't seem to go together. Wealth and power are destructive and unsocial forces.
Some people say, democracy is a procedure. Partially they are right. Democracy can't work without a procedure. The problem is: the financial elites of The West learned very well how to manipulate the procedure. So, even when all procedures are respected, the outcome of the elections is almost always in their favor. Only recently this way of handling the democracy started to fail in some western countries. Namely in Hungary, Slovakia, and in a lesser degree in some other countries. (Of course, Hungary and Slovakia are not western countries, but, sure, they belong to the western block).
On the other hand, if we consider where governments are working in the interests of majority of their people (that's what democracy should be about), we can see that, for example, in China, the government is doing exactly what majority of Chinese people expect it to do. So, from this viewpoint, China is more democratic country than most of western democracies. Also Belarus is more democratic. And, of course, Russia, which is more democratic than any western country from every viewpoint.
So true, well said. The job of governments is to serve the people and nothing else, but our rotting big money elite expects it to serve them only. Our neo-capitalistic style Democracy died when the real left opposition, unions and socialists and communists, were wiped out. The same is true for Europe, neoliberal economics was and still is the executioner .
Can’t they both be executioners?
Each state has its positives and negatives. Belarus doesn’t treat its opposition kindly. I was surprised people from there speak Russian first…
Russia sometimes looks like a clone of America that is seeking to be more American than America, more European than the rest of Europe.
Hopefully Trump just hasn’t gotten around to Ukraine yet. He hates losing…
Well, Duh. Is it a secret that the Pentagon and CIA et al have been in charge of US foreign policy for at least thirty five years?
The president is an action doll with highly proscribed action.
USAID, FMF, PDA, USAI, and others… multiple independent government agencies and legislations, and that's how US manipulates its foreign policies…!
Pre and post confirmation has led to a much more restrictive policy by department heads.
The aid story was revised after Secretary of State Rubio took office. No monetary aid to Ukraine that was not already sent will be sent for 90 days. A stop order was given by Secretary Rubio this past week after his confirmation.
As for military hardware the new Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, has also issued a stop order to be implemented immediately. He also has terminated civilian and military personnel involved with military aid to Ukraine. Some of the aid people in the Pentagon illegally undervalued the price of American military equipment in order to ship more than authorized. Jail time for the Biden sycophants?
Policy before confirmation of State and Defense may have been one thing, but after confirmation the new head of each department tightened the restrictions eliminating aid to Ukraine.
Karma is a witch and payback is a mother, FAFO!
Zelensky Wants Escalation? Kiev Regime Plans Chemical and Nuclear Terrorist Attacks Says Former Ukraine Intel. (SBU) Agent
By Drago Bosnic
“For the sake of personal gain and his own ambitions, [Zelensky] continues to destroy the Ukrainian people and is ready for any tricks (including nuclear false flags) to make Trump’s peace initiatives untimely and inappropriate against the background of yet more ‘atrocities’ of Russia”, Prozorov concluded."
However, the mainstream propaganda machine continues to censor information on such hazards, which is a crime to not only the peoples of Russia and Ukraine, but also the entire world, as all of humanity would be affected by this. Unfortunately, this is the undeniable proof that the war criminals running the political West intend to keep their grip on power regardless of the will of the people. Read entire article here: https://www.globalresearch.ca/neo-nazi-junta-plans-chemical-nuclear-terrorist-attacks/5878052
Trump interesting problem. Shall he please Putin and let Putin have Ukraine and thus be remember as the US President too weak to stand up to Russia or shall he keep sending aid to Ukraine and make his friend Putin mad?
It’s not up to Trump to “let Putin have” Ukraine. Ending US aid right now would allow the Russians to continue their partial occupations of Kherson and Zaporzhzhia for longer before withdrawing, and maybe let them finally secure Donetsk, but the Russians have already proven they’re incapable of achieving their announced goals.