Military analyst explains why we don’t hear about Lend-Lease anymore
21 June 2024 10:19
EXCLUSIVE
Immediately at the start of the full-scale invasion, on 9 May 2022, the US Congress passed a law on the Ukraine Lend-Lease, a mechanism for the rapid delivery of weapons without bureaucratic procedures. There was a lot of talk about it, and the law even played a certain psychological role, giving confidence to our country and its defenders that the United States would support Ukraine “as long as it takes”.
However, after a while, the “land deal for Ukraine” completely disappeared from the information space and the rhetoric of officials – no one even remembers it today. "Komersant Ukrainian" asked military expert Pavlo Narozhny why the issue of a land-link for Ukraine has disappeared from the agenda, despite previous discussions of this support mechanism.
According to Narozhnyi, the main reason is that the lend-lease proved to be less beneficial for Ukraine than current forms of assistance.
“We now have a $61bn aid package from the US, and this is a gift. These are not loans,”
– the expert explains.
Narozhnyi emphasises that in the case of a lend-lease, there are long waiting periods and limited availability of critical weapons:
“We come to the factory and say, ‘Sell us a Patriot. And they answer us: stand at the end of the queue, and in 5 years you will get your Patriot. And we need it now.”
The expert believes that Ukraine could raise the issue of a land-list, but, in fact, the weapons we need cannot be bought for money. We can buy certain types of equipment, such as jeeps or trucks, but even then, receiving them as aid is more profitable.
“A package of 61 billion is a huge amount of money, and in addition to the US, we have other countries, we have Europe, and, in the end, we have our own budget, from which we can also buy something,”
– narozhny concludes.
Thus, the current aid model, according to the expert, is more effective and efficient in meeting Ukraine’s urgent needs in the context of the war than the potential mechanism of a land-lease. At the same time, even under this model, weapons have to wait for a long time. For example, Narozhnyi doubts the quick effect of the US decision to redirect all open orders for Patriot air defence systems and missiles to Ukraine.
Defence land-lift for Ukraine
The Ukraine Democracy Defence Lend-Lease Act of 2022 is an act of the United States Congress passed on 9 May 2022 that granted the President of the United States expanded authority to supply Ukraine with arms and removed bureaucratic obstacles to doing so.
The law stipulated that Ukraine would pay only for the equipment it decided to keep after the war. Military aid under the lend-lease was to begin in October 2022, with the start of the new US fiscal year.
The law expired in September 2023 due to the lack of an extension for 2024.
