Ukrainian officials seeking additional American assistance against Russia are taking inspiration from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s assistance to European allies before the United States’s involvement in World War II.
“One of the proposals that we put forward today is designing a program similar to the Lend-Lease implemented during World War II to support the war efforts of the allies in Europe,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told reporters at the State Department. “This program will help to ensure … sustainability and will improve efficiency in strengthening the capacity of Ukraine to defend itself.”
Ukrainian officials are bracing for conflict with Russian forces, which have moved into Ukraine with the stated mission of partitioning the war-torn Donbas region, where Russian forces have fought under the cover of a separatist movement since 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Ukrainian resistance to that operation will lead to a “bloodbath,” putting the two sides on a collision course given that Ukraine still holds most of the region, including key population centers such as Mariupol, a major port city on the Sea of Azov — and the Ukrainians “do not have” any intention of evacuating such cities, according to Kuleba.
“We have two plans: Plan A is to utilize every tool of diplomacy to deter Russia and prevent further escalation,” the foreign minister told reporters. “And if that fails, plan B is to fight for every inch of our land and every city and every village … to fight until we win, of course.”
WHITE HOUSE SAYS BIDEN-PUTIN SUMMIT ‘NOT IN THE PLANS’ AFTER RUSSIA INVASION
Secretary of State Antony Blinken touted new economic sanctions that will lock two major Russian banks out of the U.S.-led international financial system as well as other measures to restrict Russia’s ability to raise money “to fund its priorities and [that] will increase future financing costs.” Those economic measures coincided with Germany’s decision to scrap the certification of a controversial Russian energy pipeline, Nord Stream 2.
“Any further escalatory steps by Russia will be met with further swift and severe measures, coordinated with allies and partners, on top of those announced today,” Blinken said in the joint press conference with Kuleba. “We’ll continue to stand with our allies and partners to support Ukraine as it faces Russia’s threats with courage and strength.”
Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine on Monday after airing a speech in which he complained that Bolshevik revolutionary Vladimir Lenin and subsequent Soviet leaders had made decisions that, after the Cold War, cost Moscow control of the territory “on the outskirts of the former [Russian] empire,” including Ukraine. “The collapse of the historical Russia known as the USSR is on their conscience,” he said.
That complaint makes Putin’s intentions clear, according to Blinken. “This is about the total subjugation of Ukraine to Russia. It’s about reconstituting the Russian Empire,” he said. “Or short of that, [the] sphere of influence — or short of that, the total neutrality of countries surrounding Russia.”
Putin has suggested that the conflict could be averted if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acquiesces to the Russian annexation of Crimea and partition of the Donbas region in addition to abandoning Ukraine’s hope to join NATO. He would also like the U.S. and European countries to stop providing defense equipment to Ukraine.
“Therefore, the main point is [the] demilitarization of the modern Ukraine to a certain degree because this is the only objectively controllable factor, which could be supervised and which could be reacted to,” Putin said Tuesday, per state media.
Kuleba is doing just the opposite as he adopts then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s request that a neutral U.S. “give us the tools and we will finish the job.” Roosevelt’s administration devised a plan to provide armaments on the condition that “they would return articles in existence at the end of the war if we asked for them” as one of the architects of the policy, Dean Acheson, recalled in his memoir. “In late June, we acquired another client when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union,” he added.
Roosevelt won popular support for the assistance in his famous “arsenal of democracy” address in December 1940, a year before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the U.S. into the war.
“The Nazi masters of Germany have made it clear that they intend not only to dominate all life and thought in their own country but also to enslave the whole of Europe and then to use the resources of Europe to dominate the rest of the world,” Roosevelt said. “We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us, this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution — the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice — as we would show were we at war.”
Western officials have not been as fulsome as Roosevelt in rhetorical support for Ukraine given that it is American policy to treat only an attack on NATO member-states as an attack on the U.S. Kuleba acknowledged that “no one promised us they would fight for us if we are attacked,” but he emphasized that Ukraine is now vulnerable because of a nuclear disarmament deal that Kyiv signed with the U.S., Russia, France, and the United Kingdom in 1994.
“We sacrificed a lot,” he said. “We did a lot to strengthen global security by abandoning our nuclear arsenal. That was a huge contribution. And we expect, on the principle of reciprocity, an equally huge contribution to ensuring Ukraine’s security.”
A bipartisan bloc of senators has already introduced the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act that would create a framework for the “expedited” delivery of weapons to Ukraine.
“This legislation shows there is bipartisan unity in Congress to provide President Biden with the tools needed to swiftly deliver critical defense capabilities to Ukraine and stand firm against the Kremlin,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee for Europe, last month. “The Kremlin will pay a hefty price if they escalate this crisis, and the U.S. will put its money where its mouth is to help Ukraine defend itself.”
Kuleba urged Blinken to continue imposing new sanctions on Russia if Putin continues military operations against Ukraine.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“This strategy of imposing sanctions by waves … is something that can work if it continues in a very sustainable way,” he said. “President Putin should not have a single minute when he starts to think that … the pressure [has] reached its ceiling and he will not be punished anymore. This pressure should continue to be stepped up.”
