There is a seven hour time difference between Washington and kyiv. What time zone is Joe Biden’s watch set to? A tension, even an uncomfortable contradiction, appears between the investment of his administration in the war in Ukraine and the desire to avoid a rout in the mid-term elections in November. The American president is forced into a big gap. The White House lives largely on kyiv time, so powerful are the aftershocks of this war, on the economic and geopolitical level.
But being at war by proxy, without doing it, does not allow for patriotic mobilization. Barely a one-off political consensus in Congress regarding the support to be given to Ukraine. Inflation, migratory pressure at the Mexican border, the new wave of Covid-19 contamination and federal hesitation over the mandatory mask are easy angles of attack for Republicans.
Thursday, April 21, Joe Biden announced an additional package of military aid to kyiv, amounting to 800 million dollars (738 million euros), including heavy artillery pieces, ammunition and dozens of tactical drones. On April 13, the American president had already promised an envelope of the same size. Since August 2021, this is the eighth levy on army stocks. This effort has accelerated for two months, amounting to nearly 3.4 billion dollars.
On Thursday, Joe Biden pointed to the existence of a “critical period” before the accentuation of the Russian offensive in the Donbass. A kind of race against time is engaged to allow kyiv to thwart Moscow’s plans. The American president has warned that he will ask Congress for a budget extension to prevent the flow of armaments from drying up. He also announced new economic aid to the tune of 500 million dollars, and the establishment of a migration program for Ukrainians. Washington has promised to welcome 100,000 of them, as soon as they benefit from family sponsorship or that of an NGO.
Not a week without an announcement on Ukraine
“Quite frankly, even though I was vice president for eight years and a senator for thirty-six years, I hadn’t fully realized how much the rest of the world relies on us as the leader of the free world”, noted Joe Biden, on April 20, during a meeting with the highest hierarchy of the Defense. Since the beginning of the war, on February 24, the United States have been forced to improvise, over the course of the fighting, even if it means pushing back their own taboos.
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