Pentagon: Without U.S. Aid, the AFU Will Have to Decide What Cities to Hold

Without new military aid from the USA, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will have to decide which cities they are able to hold with the resources available to them. This opinion was expressed at a media briefing on Tuesday, 20 February, by Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh. “If the request for additional funding (for military aid to Ukraine. - Ed.) is not approved (by the US Congress. - Ed.), Ukraine will have to make choices and decisions about what cities they are able to hold with the resources they have now and with what partners continue to send it,” she said. “I can’t predict, these will be decisions the Ukrainians can talk about. There is a critical fight for their lives and country right now, so we need funding immediately. This wake-up call has been sounding since October,” the Pentagon secretary emphasized. At the same time, she described the AFU retreat from Avdiivka “strategic”, undertaken in order to preserve artillery and shells, which Ukraine is now severely lacking. U.S. Parliament debates aid to Ukraine New funding for military aid to Ukraine, which has already been repelling Russian aggression for two years, cannot be agreed upon in the US Congress since autumn 2023. On 13 February, the Democrat-controlled upper house of the US parliament, the Senate, approved a bill on allocating $95.3bn to help Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Kyiv is to receive $60.06bn of this amount. However, this document may not pass the House of Representatives, where the Republican Party has a majority. The speaker of the lower house of Congress Mike Johnson has already said that the bill in its current form - knowingly inadmissible, as it does not prescribe funding for measures to strengthen the defense of the US southern border, which the Republicans insist on. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also called on the US Congress to approve a $60 billion military aid package for Kyiv as soon as possible. The longer the USA delays providing aid, the more Ukrainians will die on the frontline, he warned.