Ukraine Update: Assisting Ukraine is the best U.S. defense program in decades

You can read more great Ukraine coverage by both staff and community members here . The list of reasons why assisting Ukraine is good for the United States is a long one. There’s the immense damage to the Russian military, the revitalization and expansion of NATO, the restoration of America’s position as a leader in the fight for democracy, the strengthening of diplomatic ties, and even a giant shift away from Russian-supplied oil and gas.

Also, defending a peaceful democratic nation against an illegal invasion by an aggressive, authoritarian military force is simply the right thing to do. And doing the right thing now and then is good for everyone. But there’s another way in which helping Ukraine is helping the United States: It is revitalizing the American defense industry, generating innovation, and creating jobs in America.

An evaluation from the Center for Strategic and International Studies shows what should have been obvious from the start: When we talk about assistance to Ukraine, most of it involves the transfer of existing weapons systems that have already been built. Many of those systems are older, like the 1,669 Humvees and 300 M113 armored personnel carriers the American military has shipped to Ukraine. But when shipments to Ukraine involve either systems or ammunition that need to be replaced, or new systems that are seeing their first use in combat, that generates orders to defense contractors.

And those defense contractors aren’t in Ukraine: They’re in the U. S. In fact, The Washington Post reports that of the $68 billion in military assistance Congress has approved following Russia’s invasion, almost 90% has gone to Americans.

The locations where these systems are being built are scattered across the nation. America’s aid to Ukraine is not only creating American jobs but also reinvigorating our dangerously atrophied defense industrial base. @marcthiessen shows Ukraine aid’s best-kept secret: Most of the money stays in the USA pic.

twitter. com/zfoCiytjeZ Bradley fighting vehicles are built in Pennsylvania and Alabama. HIMARS rocket launchers come from Arkansas.

Switchblade drones come from California. Both Abrams tanks and Stryker combat vehicles roll off United Auto Worker lines in Ohio. This means that Republicans like Sen.

J. D. Vance and Rep.

Jim Jordan aren’t just voting against democracy when they try to block assistance to Ukraine, they are actively voting against jobs in their own home state and district. I’m a big believer in many of the things President Dwight Eisenhower had to say in his farewell address . No one should cheer the spending of a single penny on military hardware that might otherwise be spent on infrastructure, health care, or any peaceful purpose.

And guarding against the influence of what Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex” is at least as important today as it was in 1961. But Eisenhower understood that, in an age where war could reach around the world in minutes, the risks of a robust defense industry had to be weighed against the cost of being unable to respond when necessary. It wasn’t a situation that he wanted.

It shouldn’t be a situation that anyone wants. But if the United States is going to spend money on acquiring weapons so that Ukraine can fight against the invading might of Russia, it’s a very good thing that the money is being spent in the United States. So far, Ukraine’s use of those weapons systems looks like a bargain, by anyone’s accounting.

Over the last 643 days, Russia’s efforts to illegally invade and subjugate Ukraine have been a disaster for Vladimir Putin and his dreams of a renewed Soviet empire. Ukraine now estimates that Russia has lost 5,538 tanks in the conflict, over 2,500 of which have been independently visually confirmed. Add to that over 10,000 armored vehicles, over 8,000 artillery and MLRS systems, more than 300 military helicopters, and over 300 jet aircraft.

All that’s on top of losing a sizable fraction of the Black Sea Fleet, the rest of which is now cowering in ports they hope are outside of Ukraine’s reach. Russia has also lost at least 20 generals, thousands of lower-ranking officers, and an estimated 300,000 soldiers. Putin can call up all the conscripts he wants, scour the weeds for rusting tanks, and turn up the dial on his nation’s miserable industrial capacity, but Russia will spend decades recovering from the losses it has suffered in Ukraine.

It may never recover. Of course, the cost to Ukraine is measured in far more than dollars. They’ve also suffered tremendous losses and seen whole cities leveled by Putin’s insatiable appetite for destruction.

One of these days, money to assist Ukraine is going to be spent in Ukraine. Because that money won’t be for weapons: It will go to rebuilding homes, restoring vital services, and replacing lost schools and hospitals. Let’s get to that day as fast as we can.

For much of last year, the small village of Khromove was frequently mentioned because of its vital tactical position at the end of a road that started at Bakhmut and ran to Chasiv Yar. That “Kromove road” was at times known as the “road of life,” because it represented the last completely paved road allowing supplies and reinforcements to reach Bakhmut. At other times, it was the “road of death” because Russian forces had reached the heights about 4 kilometers to the north and began to rain artillery down on any vehicle that attempted the route.

Since Bakhmut fell, Khromove—which was little more than a couple of buildings and a crossroads, even before Russia bombed holy hell out of it—has been largely out of the news. But that changed Tuesday evening when Russia claimed to have surged west out of Bakhmut and captured the village. You can see the change in positions in these two maps from Deep State.

First, here’s where things stood on Monday. And here’s how they looked by end of day on Tuesday. To make the difference more clear, I’ve dropped a circle around the area of the Russian advance.

The peak distance here is just over 1 kilometer, so it’s not a huge change. However, Russia is moving into an area where it had been unable to advance since Wagner Group forces left Bakhmut. This could mean that Ukraine has redeployed forces out of this area to bolster efforts at Avdiivka or elsewhere, leaving this area more open to Russian movement.

However, that’s just speculation. According to Deep State, which is generally conservative in all of its claims, Ukraine still controls that crossroads at Khromove, with Russia only holding positions at the northeast end of the village. However, Russia says it took it all.

The Ukrainian General Staff also doesn’t include Khromove among the locations hit by Russian artillery on Wednesday but does list Ivaniske, which is the next town over. That could be an indicator that Russia either has the location or has essential control of the area. It is reported that last night, Ukraine attacked Saki air base in occupied Crimea, specifically the 43rd Aviation Regiment.

Preliminary reports suggest over 30 Russian servicemen were killed. pic. twitter.

com/V48NAXtbKq.