The Biden administration is considering providing Ukraine with an additional $500 million in aid and is pushing European allies to match the contribution, according to people familiar with recent discussions.
The Ukrainians could use the money to shore up government services, or for humanitarian aid, or military purposes, one of the people said.
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Officials in the governments of several NATO allies, including the US and UK, are skeptical of recent Russian announcements that it will scale back its assault on Kyiv and have urged increased support to Ukraine, the people said.
Despite some evidence of Russian troop movements away from the capital and stalled operations, the people said officials have yet to see hard evidence to suggest that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategic objectives had changed.
Russia could be simply buying time to regroup as it engages in negotiations with Kyiv, one of the people said. US military aid to Ukraine and sanctions on Russia will not only keep flowing but will surge until Moscow shows it’s serious about a cease-fire, another person familiar with the matter said.
The people familiar with the discussions asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. White House communications staff didn’t immediately comment.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US is focusing on Moscow’s actions, not its words, as peace talks with Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul ended with a Russian pledge to reduce some of its military operations.
“There is what Russia says and there is what Russia does: We’re focused on the latter,” Blinken told reporters in Morocco, where he’s meeting US regional allies.
“We have not seen signs of real seriousness from Russia toward de-escalating its war,” he said, adding it was up to Ukrainian officials to determine Moscow’s intent.
The Kremlin said Tuesday that it was cutting military activity near Kyiv and the city of Chernihiv, with chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky saying after talks with Ukrainian representatives in Turkey that Moscow would take steps to de-escalate. The Russian side indicated a meeting was possible between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Russia has taken significant casualties in its invasion of Ukraine, now just over a month old, with NATO estimating last week that as many as 15,000 of its soldiers have been killed, with tens of thousands more wounded or captured. The Kremlin says its casualties are far lower, while Kyiv says its military has inflicted even larger losses. None of the claims are independently verifiable.
Zelenskyy has said that as part of a peace deal his government would entertain the prospect of adopting a position of neutrality, rather than seeking to join NATO. But he’s said any agreement must come with security guarantees backed by the US and European nations for areas outside of Russian-controlled Crimea and separatist-held territories in Ukraine’s east.
At a NATO summit last week, UK British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was among a number of leaders who called on other countries to send more weapons to Kyiv. US President Joe Biden is under some pressure from Republicans to increase his administration’s already considerable military aid to Ukraine, which has included thousands of anti-air and anti-tank missiles.
The US and its European allies are also continuing to coordinate on sanctions and will meet regularly to tighten measures adopted so far, as well as to prepare potential major action should Russia resort to weapons of mass destruction, the people said. They declined to elaborate.
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