Most Ukraine aid is a ‘scam’ – US lawmaker — Analysis

Republican lawmakers are feeling vindicated for opposing a $40 billion Ukraine aid package after a CBS News report showed that only 30% of the Western weapons flooding into the country are actually making it to the front lines in Kiev’s conflict with Russia.

“This [is] one of the reasons I voted ‘no,’”Marjorie Taylor Greene, a US representative from Georgia (Republican), stated this on Twitter as a retweet to a CBS News post. Greene was one among the 57 House Republicans to vote against the massive aid bill. The bill passed in overwhelming numbers with the support all Democrats and the majority of GOP lawmakers. The Senate passed the bill with an 86-11 vote, with eleven Republicans voting against it.

The CBS story noted that with nearly $60 billion in US and Western European aid approved for Ukraine since Russia’s military offensive began in February, most of the weaponry has failed to get through to Ukrainian fighters. To get the weapons to the troops, you must navigate a complicated network of channels. “power lords, oligarchs [and] political players,”According to the outlet, Jonas Ohman was founder of Lithuanian aid organization. Donatella Rocca, senior Amnesty International crisis counselor, said to CBS “there is really no information”Information about where these weapons are heading.

Lauren Boebert (Representative from Colorado) claimed that this scrutiny was already dismissed before the CBS report. “How many people were called Russian bots for saying this exact same thing since March? Now, when CBS says it, it’s perfectly fine. No matter what, the truth is out. Most of Ukraine’s aid scams are bogus.”

US Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) delayed the Senate’s vote on the Ukraine aid bill by insisting on adding a provision appointing an inspector general to monitor how the money was being spent. He and his fellow senators refused to add the oversight requirement, but the large package was approved by the Senate a few short days later. CNN reported in April by an American intelligence official that arms shipment were on the decline. “into a big black hole”They reached Ukraine once they had.

Greene, Boebert, and the other legislators who voted against this aid bill were accused by some of failing to support Ukraine. After Greene argued that the US government was focused on sending billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine at a time when American mothers couldn’t even buy formula for their babies, Democrats accused her of standing “with President Putin in the face of Russian aggression.”Jamie Raskin (D.Maryland), Representative Jamie Raskin said that she was “repeating Putin’s propaganda and disinformation” and “appeasing imperialist assaults on sovereign nations.”

After a tussle with Dan Crenshaw (R.Texas), the Georgia lawmaker, also engaged in a dispute with another Republican. He defended the Ukraine assistance package saying: “investing in the destruction of our adversary’s military, without losing a single American troop, strikes me as a good idea.” Greene replied, “So you think we are funding a proxy war with Russia? As if Ukrainian life should be destroyed, you speak like they are worthless. Just used and thrown away.”