The Ukrainian government is hoping to set up partnerships with EU countries so it can continue fighting, regardless of the outcome of the 2024 US elections, the country's Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said on Monday.
Support for Kiev is dwindling after Republicans took control of the US House of Representatives and there are fears that providing weapons and aid to Israel will take precedence over Ukraine, amid the war in Gaza.
“As for what might happen in 2024, we’ll have to wait and see. But we are preparing because we cannot afford to depend only on American support,” Kuleba told the German outlet Die Welt.
“Thanks to our friends in Europe and other countries, I think we are not afraid of a doomsday scenario.”
Kuleba noted that his proposals for the joint production of weapons and ammunition were “received positively by the foreign ministers” at a recent EU enlargement conference in Berlin.
“That is why we are now investing huge amounts of money in our own production of all types of weapons, increasing production volumes and militarizing our economy,” he said.
“If the West cannot win this war, then what war can it win?” Kuleba wondered.
The US has supplied the lion’s share of both military and financial aid to Kiev over the past two years. The Pentagon has estimated the value of just the equipment and ammunition sent to Ukraine at over $44 billion since the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022.
In last month’s request to Congress for emergency funding for Ukraine, the White House revealed that Kiev was receiving $1.1 billion per month in cash infusions, which the new $61 billion proposal would slash to $825 million, with the expectation that the EU and Japan will pick up the difference.
Much of US attention over the past month has been focused on Israel, however. Zelensky has lamented the fact that Ukraine has faded from American headlines, and has attempted to regain attention in a variety of ways, most recently by inviting former president Donald Trump to Kiev. Trump declined.
A Time magazine story last week painted Zelensky as “delusional” – in the words of his aides – and the war itself as a lost cause, with everyone around him “stealing like there’s no tomorrow.” Kuleba has denounced these quotes as false and insisted that Ukraine was successfully fighting against corruption.