American Lend-Lease for Ukraine ended without beginning: what will happen next

Since the beginning of October, the American Lend-Lease law for Ukraine has lost its force. It was planned that the US authorities would extend its validity for the next year, but this never happened. What will happen next, the publication found out with the BBC.

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In the respectful atmosphere of the White House, on May 9, 2022, US President Joe Biden, together with other senior officials, including Ukrainian-born Congresswoman Victoria Spartz, signed the Lend-Lease Act for Ukraine.

This event is of particular significance, since the last time something like this happened was during the Second World War. At that time, the United States supplied its allies, including the Soviet Union, with various weapons, food, equipment, fuel and other necessary resources on a lease basis or on a long-term basis, which literally means “lend-lease.”

Although during the so-called Cold War the Soviet government tried to reduce the importance of American assistance in achieving victory over Nazism, military experts acknowledge that the huge volumes of American assistance certainly had a significant impact on the course of events during the war.

The meaning and symbolic importance of Lend-Lease from the United States was discussed even at the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The end of Lend-Lease or not yet

Although the “Lend-Lease Law for the Defense of Democracy in Ukraine 2022” formally began to operate in May last year, until now this mechanism has remained unused.

The reason is that military assistance to Ukraine continued to be provided through three other US federal programs: the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), Foreign Military Financing (FMF), and U.S. Weapons Divestment. reserves (Presidential Drawdown, PDA). All these programs were provided to Ukraine free of charge, unlike Lend-Lease.

Representatives of both Ukrainian and American authorities called Lend-Lease a “reserve” or “spare” option. In other words, if the US Congress decides not to allocate funds for the first three programs, then President Biden will be able to use Lend-Lease to supply weapons to Ukraine.

On the subject: The United States has put forward strict demands to Ukraine: without their implementation there will be no further support

The text of the law itself gives the US President “expanded authority to enter into agreements with the government of Ukraine to provide lease or lease of defense assets to protect civilians in Ukraine from Russian military invasion and for other purposes.”

However, so far no corresponding agreement has been concluded between Kiev and Washington, which would spell out the details and volume of military assistance. And, more importantly, this law was only effective for fiscal years 2022 and 2023 in the United States. The US fiscal year 2024 began in October.

Former Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Valeriy Chaly pointed out that the issue of extending Lend-Lease is spelled out in the draft US defense budget for 2024. Therefore, it would be premature to talk about the completion of this mechanism.

In July of this year, Oksana Markarova, the current Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, said that she was actively working to convince the US Congress to extend the Lend-Lease law. She emphasized the importance, along with other programs, of having the option of renting or leasing weapons to ensure the security of Ukraine. However, at the moment, the US authorities have not yet responded to her calls.

It is important to note that on October 3, Markarova published a photo with Republican Senator John Cornyn, the author of last year's Lend-Lease law. According to her, they discussed the issue of extending the law for next year. This issue is likely to remain relevant and will be addressed in the near future.

Fallback or "inflexible mechanism"

The question of why the Lend-Lease law never came into force after a year and a half of full-scale war was raised several times both in Ukraine and in the United States.

President Biden's administration has emphasized that their priority is to provide military assistance to Ukraine free of charge, rather than through rent or lease.

“We are now prioritizing security assistance for Ukraine, for which they will not have to repay the funds later,” the White House said.

At first, Ukrainian authorities considered the Lend-Lease law “proof of the ability of freedom to defend itself against tyranny” and argued that it would help overcome Russia.

“I am sure that now Lend-Lease will help Ukraine and the entire free world overcome the ideological heirs of the Nazis, who launched a war against us on our land. Lend-Lease and other programs to support Ukraine are concrete proof that freedom can still defend itself from tyranny,” said Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in the spring of 2022.

However, later the position of the Ukrainian authorities changed. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine began to focus on the importance of free mechanisms for the supply of weapons, rather than Lend-Lease.

“What we get now is simply given to us as a gift. There will be no such thing as rent completely replacing gifts,” said Minister Dmitry Kuleba.

Former Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Valery Chaly admitted that the Lend-Lease law at the beginning of a full-scale war was a signal to the Kremlin about the possibility of large arms supplies to Ukraine.

However, questions still remain open as to why Kyiv and Washington could not even preliminarily agree on an agreement on the supply of military assistance in accordance with the Lend-Lease law. This agreement was to define the conditions under which Ukraine would receive weapons.

“I have a question, why does everyone think that they will have to pay (for the transferred weapons)? The point is that all this must be spelled out in the agreement. We don’t know whether to pay or not pay, or whether there will simply be a condition for returning undamaged equipment (after the war), because there is not even a draft of such an agreement,” the diplomat notes.

He considers it right to extend the Lend-Lease law for the next year and try to “test” this mechanism of military assistance.

“Let’s see how this will work, because for now this is all hypothetical talk,” says Chaly.

A BBC source regarding this issue admits that one of the reasons for not introducing Lend-Lease is that it turned out to be “more convenient” for the White House to distribute funds directly rather than military equipment.

That is, Congress allocates funds from the budget for military assistance to Ukraine, and the White House and the Pentagon themselves decide which specific types of weapons to spend it on or which military factories to distribute it to.

This is a “more flexible” mechanism that is not influenced by opposition among Republican congressmen, the source notes.

"An annoying question"

Perhaps American legislators could vote on a new Lend-Lease law before October 1, but the “active phase” of the political struggle between Democrats and Republicans has begun in the United States.

And only on the last possible day, September 30, the House of Representatives and then the Senate of the US Congress approved a bill to temporarily finance the government in order to prevent a possible shutdown, which could begin on the night of October 1.

President Joe Biden signed the document just minutes before the deadline.

This adopted budget provided funding for only 45 days and did not include assistance to Ukraine.

In a statement released shortly after the Senate vote, President Biden said that "extreme House Republicans" were trying to create a "manufactured crisis" and called on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to immediately address further aid to Ukraine.

“Under no circumstances can we allow America to stop supporting Ukraine,” Biden said.

However, on October 3, Republican McCarthy was removed from the post of Speaker for the first time in US history. His resignation was supported by both Democrats and some Republicans.

An American expert from the Ukrainian Prism Foreign Policy Council, Alexander Kraev, believes that pro-Ukrainian forces in the United States decided not to raise the Lend-Lease issue before the budget vote, as this could aggravate the political confrontation.

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“The issue of Lend-Lease is clearly not being raised so as not to increase the temperature of this confrontation. Because then all the agreements will fall apart,” explains the expert.

However, Kraev argues that Lend-Lease could be extended to provide the American president with an instrument of military assistance to Ukraine without the need to coordinate it with Congress.

“It may still be adopted simply to prevent any manipulation, because next year there will be not only presidential, but also congressional elections in the United States. And in order to protect Ukraine from new political crises, in order to protect Ukraine from manipulation by Congress, in principle there is still a chance that at some stage they will return to the Lend-Lease issue,” he believes.

Valery Chaly is confident that US military support for Ukraine will remain unchanged.

“This is a matter of US national security. Both Democrats and Republicans understand this,” says the diplomat, but notes one problem: “The problem is that a bad signal was provided - a wrong message.” That the issue of assistance to Ukraine can be used in the internal debate between Democrats and Republicans. This issue must unite the two parties; it cannot be allowed to become a “bargaining chip” in the political struggle.”

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