Like an apparition suddenly materializing in an amusement park funhouse, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a surprise visit to Kyiv. And he showed up with the US taxpayers’ wallets wide open with a billion dollars with no understanding of what the billion dollars will buy as an end state. There is absolutely no strategy that anyone can point to as a way forward. The perverse dimension to the visit is the State Department; presumably, the Biden administration is proud that they have no objective. How will anyone know when the end is in sight when there is no insight into what anyone is working toward?
Secretary Blinken Is Following in Biden’s Footsteps
Blinken – like Biden, who clandestinely visited last February – came in secret to fortify US support for Ukraine. But, unlike his boss, Blinken took time to talk to the press during a stop in Yahidne, Ukraine, a village in the middle of the Bakhmut region of the Donetsk Oblast. The village was liberated from the Russian invaders’ oppressive occupation. During his visit to Ukraine, Blinken was in Kyiv when the instant hand of death came as a Russian missile hit a marketplace in Kostiantynivka, a city near the eastern edge of the front-line fighting. Reports on the missile strike number the dead at 17, including a child, and 38 more wounded. The missile attack came when the chief of US foreign policy was in Kyiv and should have underscored the need for a strategy that uses the billions in aid to find a road to closure on the fighting.
During a press event, Secretary Blinken mentioned the missile attack and the suffering of the Ukrainians. Blinken explained to the reporters:
“Just yesterday, we saw the bombing of a market – 17 people or more killed, many others injured. A market. For what? This is what Ukrainians are living with every day. This is what is happening here every day. And I ask you to just imagine if this was your schoolhouse, if these were your children. Think about that for a minute. But we’re also seeing something else that’s incredibly powerful, and that is the extraordinary resilience of the Ukrainian people.”
No one denies the Ukrainian people’s bravery and “resilience.” Still, how the Biden administration has piecemealed its weapons packages to Kyiv has prolonged the requirement for Ukrainians to be resilient.
In comments to NBC News, “Putin was ‘wrong’ if he thought that ‘somehow he can outlast Ukraine, outlast us, outlast the dozens of countries that are supporting Ukraine,’ Blinken said,” NBC correspondents reported. But the comments are more of the same “as long as it takes” rhetoric the Biden administration has been pushing since February 24, 2022, when the Russian unprovoked invasion of Ukraine kicked off. The only plan the Biden administration has demonstrated is to throw more money at the problem.
Blinken Brings Money Not a Strategy
Antony Blinken (middle) and Foreign Minister of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba (right) (Photo by STR/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
That is precisely what Blinken announced during his trip. The Biden administration will provide the Kyiv government $1 billion, “including $175 million from Defense Department stocks, $100 million in military financing, $90.5 million in humanitarian demining assistance, $300 million to support the country’s law enforcement, and $206 million in humanitarian aid,” Greg Norman reported for Fox News. The new spate of aid to Ukraine provides, “additional US assistance and encouraged continued progress on Ukraine’s reform agenda, including combatting corruption and safeguarding the autonomy and integrity of Ukraine’s anti-corruption authorities and courts,” according to a fact sheet released by the State Department. The emphasis on “anti-corruption” seems ironic if not disingenuous since the Biden administration has been opposed to establishing a special inspector general for Ukraine assistance who would be an asset in addressing corruption in Ukraine.
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters its 19th month, the American public is becoming disenchanted with the Biden administration’s failure to explain the strategy and end game for Ukraine. Support for the administration’s approach is dissipating, and a reverse in that trend does not appear likely. As Blinken explained to the press regarding the misery experienced by the Ukrainians, “it is about the people, it is about the mothers, it is about the children, it is about the fathers who are the ones who are the victims of what we’ve seen in Ukraine.” Without a way forward, the Biden administration will be conveying this sentiment often.
