The latest additional A U.S. security package for Ukraine, passed in April 2024, tasks President Joe Biden's administration with crafting a strategy for continuing U.S. support for Ukraine against Russian aggression. The strategy should "help Ukraine end the conflict as a democratic, independent and sovereign state capable of deterring and defending its territory". This white paper aims to support the development of such a strategy by defining five key strategic issues: (1) integrating Ukraine into the European economic and transatlantic security order, (2) undermining Russia's continued ability to circumvent sanctions and have access to capital, (3) ) combating the persistence of Russian disinformation campaigns, (4) rethinking the arsenal of democracy, and (5) sustaining and strengthening Ukraine's economy and democracy, writes CSIS with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
To succeed, the strategy must have bipartisan support and be effectively communicated both to the appropriate congressional committees, as required by statute, and to the American people. In the absence of public support, Russia will win. The Russian regime possesses the main advantage of autocracies: the ability to play a long game owed not to the Russian people, but rather to its political and military elite. Russian President Vladimir Putin is encouraged by the prospect of waning public support for Ukraine's fight in the West. Rather than treating this as yet another time-consuming reporting requirement foisted on overworked congressional staffers, the administration should seize the opportunity to craft a strategy that will lay the groundwork for continued support for Ukraine for three to five years.
Long wars require strategic vision
The optimism that prevailed after Ukraine held off advancing Russian columns in the spring of 2023 has given way to the reality of a longer war. The Russian-Ukrainian war is now longer and bloodier than 90% of all interstate wars of the past 200 years. Once bouts of attrition pass that threshold, they last an average of 962 days, or almost three years. And the end is uncertain.
Long wars have unique dynamics that require more targeted planning and resource provisioning. Strategies to gain an advantage in exhausting campaigns should follow the "attractiveness" of battle and to beware of the myth of quick, decisive victories that continues to plague most military and political thought. An informed approach that incorporates lessons from past conflicts is more sensible than assumptions of quick success. Optimistic forecasts can create information asymmetries leading to miscalculations reminiscent of Ponzi schemes that promise quick and significant returns on investment but end up losing valuable capital.
Consequently, stopping Russia in Ukraine requires a shift from the reactive approaches of the past two years to a more proactive strategy. This strategy should anticipate a conflict that could last another two to three years and prepare the most significant effort to rebuild Europe since World War II. The plan must include a well-defined theory of victory and a vision for the post-war European security landscape that extends beyond the borders of Ukraine.
Effective strategy begins with a comprehensive assessment of the war and the desired outcomes. This analysis identifies key challenges that, if not addressed, will increase the disparity between the current state of conflict and the potential for peace and stability not only in Europe but globally. Only by starting with these issues can strategists visualize and describe opportunities, key trade-offs, and how best to reconcile ways (foreign policy options) and means (resources). As a result, this document defines the most pressing issues that the Victory Plan must address to ensure victory in Ukraine and a position of advantage in the anticipated post-conflict competition with Russia.
Strategy begins with a clear end state
For Ukraine, the ideal end-state seems clear: (1) restoration of its sovereign territory (ie, the 1991 borders), (2) restoration of the country in a way that promotes deeper Western integration, and (3 ) holding Russia responsible for war crimes .
Whether or not U.S. policymakers agree with this end state, it should serve as the basis for any U.S. strategy. While the United States has already committed over $175 billion to support the war in Ukraine, it is not an American war. Most of the soldiers fighting and dying on the front lines are Ukrainians, not Americans or Europeans. As such, US policymakers should approach strategy formation with a sense of humility. There is almost certainly an ongoing debate within the Biden administration that divides those who would prefer Ukraine to make concessions to avoid further escalation and more violent parties who see the fate of the international order in the steppe battlefields of eastern and southern Ukraine . Nevertheless, there is probably a consensus around the need to support Ukraine in its defense against Russia, but with limits on attacks on Russian territory with US weapons to avoid further escalation.
It is unclear whether a coherent and well-coordinated strategy has guided US support for Ukraine so far. While commendable for their swift response early in the conflict, Western efforts to maintain support for Ukraine appear ad hoc and less coordinated than optimal. Transatlantic leaders appear to be faced with budgetary, time and space constraints to forge a clear, deliberate theory of victory and a long-term plan to achieve it. These limitations have been evident since the beginning of the war. Reactive crisis management in Washington has replaced discussion of strategy and focuses on short-term (multi-month) decisions designed to manage the risks of escalation instead of the long-term (multi-year) planning needed to ensure Ukraine's victory.
A comparison of the efforts to support Ukraine and the Allied planning conferences preceding World War II is telling. Even before the United States officially entered the war, its top military leaders and strategists were already developing plans to defend Europe and create a new postwar order. There were five major planning conferences over two years before the United States officially entered World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor. These conferences included major strategic framing documents such as the 1940 Plan Dog memorandum giving priority to the European theater and the 1941 Atlantic Charter setting out a vision for post-war Europe.
Where are the equivalent documents governing the current war in Ukraine? The formation of the Ukrainian Contact Group (UCG) and the meetings at Ramstein Air Base, designed to "help Ukraine win today and build strength for tomorrow" are just the beginning. The UCG currently lacks a multifaceted policy framework focused on a long-term competitive strategy that extends beyond the immediate need to contain Ukraine on the battlefield. Moreover, there appears to be a lack of unity of effort, both within individual governments and within the wider transatlantic network of countries supporting Ukraine. There are reconstruction envoys and daily meetings, but none seem backed by an overarching strategy with clear end states, goals or resourcing plans that go beyond the short term. There are discussions about seizing frozen Russian assets, but they seem stuck in a dangerously long discussion phase. After all, the West seems to be creeping in and reacting to the latest crisis instead of setting the conditions for Ukraine's victory.
Crisis response is not a strategy
At best, crisis response is consequence management. It's putting out a fire and rushing to contain a burning building instead of taking the time to be a firefighter and think about how to prevent fires and control future fires. Seen in this light, congressional leaders did the right thing by asking the Biden administration for a strategic vision for victory in Ukraine.
In retrospect, it seems that too much energy and political capital was spent discussing the risks of escalation and securing immediate stockpiles of weapons to keep Ukraine in the fight at the expense of developing a long-term strategy. The war in Gaza further rejected long-term strategic thinking, as the Biden administration found itself responding to two major theater wars involving multiple adversaries while maintaining sufficient forces to focus on deterrence in the Asia-Pacific region.
This logic of crisis response means that weapons have been delivered to units in Ukraine without a clear view of the flow of resources over time, directly limiting the ability of the Ukrainian military to conduct long-term campaign planning. In June 2023, this trend manifested itself, when all energy and resources were directed towards an unrealistic triple defense belt breakthrough without air superiority. This campaign has also not planned resources to help rebuild the Ukrainian military for the next three years. Uncertain aid flows have been at the fore in an almost endless series of recovery conferences that have failed to produce binding documents or funding for some 10 years of a $486 billion effort to rebuild a country scarred by large-scale combat operations. These mistakes cannot continue or they risk Russia winning. Worse, they are setting the stage for future wars in Europe and beyond.
Five strategic issues
The transatlantic alliance has a unique opportunity to develop a long-term strategy to support Ukraine and contain Russia. As analysts who have spent time in Ukraine supporting efforts related to the ongoing hostilities, the authors see five key strategic issues that must be addressed as part of the new theory of victory that the Biden administration is crafting in response to the directive in the national security supplement.
1. Integration of Ukraine into the European Economic and Transatlantic Security Order
The only way to ensure lasting peace in Ukraine is to explore Ukraine's path to deeper relations with NATO and the European Union. By taking steps to join both institutions over time, Ukraine will also strengthen its internal democracy.
Ukraine applied for EU membership less than a week after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. In December 2023, the European Council granted Ukraine candidate status and approved the opening of accession negotiations. This is significant as current EU members waited an average of 3.5 years from the time of their application to the official approval of candidate status. There are 35 areas where reforms are needed to meet membership requirements, ranging from food safety and justice to freedom and security.
Although not a member of the EU, the United States should support Ukraine's aspirations to join the European Union by directing its assistance to accelerate the design and implementation of the necessary reforms. The administration's strategy should propose the key areas of reform in which the United States can take the lead and coordinate with the European Union and other donor countries to ensure additional efforts. Fighting corruption and tackling judicial reform appear to be sensible areas in which to focus US assistance, given the substantial support in these sectors to date. Through the additional packages, the United States has programmed critical dollars to support Ukraine's anti-corruption efforts by supporting transparency and organizations such as the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) and by funding financial reporting platforms such as Prozorro and Digital Restoration Ecosystem for Accountable Management (DREAM). The United States should also double investment in support of judicial reform, a key requirement for EU membership and an ongoing challenge in the fight against corruption.
Furthermore, the United States must use its diplomatic leverage to ensure that the European Union accepts the negotiating framework for Ukraine before EU elections in June. After the elections, Hungary will take over the presidency of the European Council. Given the Hungarian government's ties to Russia, progress on Ukraine's accession is unlikely to be a priority. Even if Ukraine's EU membership is fast-tracked, many experts say EU enlargement will require treaty reform - a complex and cumbersome process that many nations in the bloc will be reluctant to undertake. However, this should not stop Ukraine's efforts to implement an ambitious reform program to secure membership when the time is right.
While EU membership would secure Ukraine's economic future, the protection and stability of Ukraine's post-war borders will require a multilateral security guarantee. NATO is the most obvious mechanism for providing such a guarantee. Ukraine's aspirations to join NATO preceded the full-scale invasion of Russia. Alliance members first agreed to Ukraine becoming a NATO member at a summit in Bucharest in 2008. Those plans were put on hold from 2010 to 2014 when Ukraine adopted a policy of non-alignment under pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych . Yanukovych was forced into exile amid pro-democracy protests in February 2014. Putin, sensing a threat to his influence in Ukraine, illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula, setting off a revival of Ukraine's efforts to join the alliance. In 2017, the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed legislation confirming NATO membership as a strategic foreign policy and national security goal, which was followed by a corresponding constitutional amendment. At the last NATO Summit in Vilnius, the Secretary General reaffirmed the commitment to accelerate Ukraine's NATO membership "when Allies agree and the conditions are met". The Secretary General also stated that "unless Ukraine prevails, there will be no discussion of membership at all". These statements left Ukraine without a clear set of criteria or timetable for NATO membership.
The next NATO summit is approaching. Heads of state, along with senior foreign and defense officials, will gather in Washington, D.C., in early July. This summit will be particularly symbolic as it marks the 75th anniversary of the alliance and will be the first time in more than a decade that the United States will host. While the summits are often productive, the alliance should seize the opportunity to clearly lay out a detailed plan to support Ukraine's victory and subsequent NATO accession, even if it takes years.
To ensure broader regional security, the administration's strategy for victory in Ukraine must take into account its neighbors — specifically the former Soviet republic of Moldova. While other Ukrainian neighbors, including Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary, are in both the European Union and NATO, Moldova is more isolated. It shares a long border with Ukraine and is within arm's reach of Russian-occupied Crimea. The breakaway province of Transnistria is also located here, where an unknown number of Russian troops are stationed. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, NATO continued to strengthen its relationship with Moldova. Based on the country's 2022 membership application, Moldovans will go to the polls in autumn 2024 to vote in a referendum to amend their constitution in line with the citizens' desire to join the European Union.
To support Ukraine, US strategy must also support Moldova's demonstrated desire to move closer to the European Union and NATO. Russia is actively and openly interfering in the presidential elections in Moldova, planned to be held simultaneously with the EU referendum. If Russia succeeds, it could open another vector to destabilize Ukraine and the region. The Biden administration clearly recognizes the importance of Moldova, targeting nearly $260 million of just $2.5 million in 2023 alone.
Ukraine's northern neighbor, Belarus, will continue to pose a challenge as long as pro-Russian President Alexander Lukashenko remains in power. The administration's strategy must also grapple with how to deal with this closed country, which many see as Putin's proxy state. In 2020, however, Belarus experienced mass protests signaling the people's dissatisfaction with the despotic leader. While the charismatic exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tsikhanovskaya caught the attention of the West immediately after her surprise bid for the presidency in August 2020, attention to Belarus has slipped the minds of many politicians. The West became distracted as new crises emerged and Lukashenko appeared to be consolidating power and suppressing the opposition. However, to ensure regional stability, the Biden administration must contend not only with Russia, but also with Belarus.
Any strategy for Ukraine must consider Kiev as part of a larger European security order that connects the Black Sea with Central and Eastern Europe. This geopolitical perspective should reconcile programs designed to support reform-seeking civil society groups in Belarus, protect Moldova from malicious influence as its citizens decide on EU membership, and work with European partners to create optimal security guarantees for front line countries. Failure to take a regional perspective risks victory in Ukraine turning into a stalemate for Europe as Moscow continues its heady attempt to rebuild the old empire.
2. Reducing Russia's ability to access capital and circumvent sanctions
According to the Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero, "endless money forms the support of war". In today's world, this includes being able to access the high-tech components needed to produce precision weapons. Despite Western sanctions, Moscow retains its ability to earn hard currency through oil exports, often facilitated through unregistered "ghost" vessels and loopholes in third-party refineries. In March, China's imports of Russian oil reached 2.55 million barrels per day, close to the all-time high of 2.56 million barrels per day last June. Russia has overtaken Saudi Arabia as China's largest oil supplier. Based on data compiled by Bloomberg, the value of crude oil exports from Russia for one week in April reached $2.15 billion. While Asia is the main destination for Russian crude oil, China is not the only country buying these supplies. India accounted for nearly half of Russian oil purchases over the past year. Turkey, which is a member of NATO, also buys a significant amount of Russian oil.
The United States and its allies must find a way to cut off Russia's money flows. India and Turkey, in particular, should be pressured to stop buying Russian oil. Still, alternatives must be offered. All options should be on the table, including increasing LNG exports. In fact, the only way Washington can convince Ukraine to stop striking refinery targets deep inside Russia is to show Kiev alternatives to reducing Moscow's cash flow.
Second, the transatlantic community must develop better mechanisms to limit Russia's ability to import the critical electronic components needed to expand its arsenal of authoritarianism. Modern precision strike and battlenet modes rely on microprocessors and other inputs to transmit data to target weapons. Russian military theory - Sixth Generation Warfare to Strategic Operation for the Destruction of Critically Important Targets (SODCIT) - calls for the use of long-range precision fire to break the will of the enemy. As a result, ensuring a stable supply of electronics is critical to Moscow's war machine. Without chips, there is no precision shot.
Despite a wide range of Western sanctions, Moscow can still import the electronic precursors needed to replenish its missile stockpile. As a result, Russian factories produce over 100 precision ballistic and long-range cruise missiles per month. These weapons force Ukraine to maintain air defenses around Kiev, further altering the air balance. Russia can attack Ukrainian forces along the front and shell various Ukrainian cities. And it's not just Russia: Iranian weapons supporting Moscow's war often contain banned electronics.
The United States and allied countries must find a way to stop the flow of electronics in addition to creating barriers to future supplies. These efforts will require coordinating intelligence and law enforcement efforts to identify shell companies used to facilitate imports from Russia while mapping the world of cryptocurrency exchanges used to finance illicit activity. It also calls for the consideration of new legislation requiring companies to better monitor their sales, including on secondary markets. Despite a recent visit by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, shaming China will not be enough to stem the flow of weapons precursors that fuel Moscow's war machine.
3. Combating the Persistence of Russian Disinformation
The old ideas of proactive measures and reflexive control live on in Putin's Russia and form the core of political warfare enabled in cyberspace. Microsoft reported Russian efforts to infiltrate more than 100 organizations in more than 40 countries outside of Ukraine in the first year of the war, often linked to advanced persistent manipulation teams that specialize in planting false narratives on social media. These efforts continue with new campaigns such as Maidan-3 designed to undermine confidence in Ukraine and its Western backers. Kremlin operatives also sought to use better-tailored deepfakes to heighten civil-military tensions in Kiev over reported differences between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and former top military leader General Valery Zaluzhny.
Globally, Russia is using cyberspace to wage what Atlantic Council researchers call a narrative war designed to undermine global confidence in Ukraine. Unlike traditional cyber infiltrations, the goal is to either cause chaos or shape public attitudes toward the conflict by using computational propaganda—creating fake social media accounts, using bots, and targeting unique user groups to remind changing public attitudes. This campaign is particularly pronounced outside Europe, where the Kremlin seeks to limit global support for Ukraine. Both the Stanford Internet Observatory and the BBC have documented extensive disinformation, disinformation and disinformation campaigns in Africa designed to bolster support for Russia. These measures include not only cyber operations, but also more overt influence activities such as offering cheap and free access to RT, a notorious Russian propaganda channel.
Even more disturbing are emerging reports that Russia is increasingly targeting the US public. In April 2024, Microsoft said it had documented a new Russian online influence campaign. Using computational propaganda and traditional outreach and influence activities, the campaign targeted both think tanks and the general public with content collected and distributed from D.C. websites. Weekly and the Miami Chronicle. The campaign used lookalikes — fake versions of real news websites in major democracies — to promote Kremlin topics and messages and even link unsuspecting users to websites run by Russian intelligence. Much of this content focuses not only on divisive issues in the United States, but also on Ukraine. According to Microsoft, "messaging about Ukraine -- through traditional media and social media -- has gained momentum over the past two months with a mix of covert and overt campaigns from at least 70 Russia-related activity sets we track."
In addition to these campaigns, Putin's agents are resurrecting their Soviet game of bribing, compromising and exploiting elected officials worldwide. In March 2024, a wide-ranging Russian influence campaign emerged after the Czech government sanctioned a news site known as "Voice of Europe" accused of being part of a pro-Russian propaganda network. In Belgium, Russian agents have paid members of the European Parliament to promote pro-Russian narratives and anti-Ukrainian sentiment. The covert influence campaign funneled money to politicians in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Hungary, often through cryptocurrency exchanges, to influence European Parliament elections and reduce support for Ukraine.
Any American strategy for victory in Ukraine must address the ease with which Moscow conducts covert influence campaigns and cyber-active information operations to distort discourse in free societies. Stopping Moscow from spreading lies and bribing elected officials must be a priority. Preventing the erosion of trust in democracies must become a central pillar of US grand strategy.
4. Rethinking the Arsenal of Democracy
Any American strategy must also include rethinking how the United States builds weapons and supports its partners and allies. While efforts by a global network of democracies to arm Ukraine are to be applauded, they cannot be sustained if these nations do not address the poor state of their respective defense industrial bases. Russia has proved more capable of mobilizing resources than the world's largest economies. NATO intelligence estimates that Russia produces three million rounds of ammunition a year — three times as many artillery shells as the United States and the European Union produce — to send to Ukraine. This rate of production is why Moscow launches up to 10 times more live fire missions on the front lines than Ukraine. This is also the reason why Russia is expanding its attacks on Ukrainian critical infrastructure. As the new missiles roll off the assembly line, Moscow can outfit them with imported Western electronics along with Iranian drones and North Korean ballistic missiles to hold Ukrainian cities hostage.
To address this disparity, the United States must first shift from a "storage" to "flow" thinking. To date, the focus has been on stockpiles, their location and the impact of sending certain weapons on the wider inventory. But this stock mindset ignores the importance of supporting foreign partners in the flow of key components through the supply chain to the battlefield. Seeing the problem from a flow perspective means not just looking at inventories, but asking how to speed up production, taking into account everything from the supply of materials to how regulatory frameworks limit the ability to build new facilities or work with foreign partners.
This also means seeing networks instead of states. The United States cannot produce enough weapons for Ukraine while maintaining its capacity to deal with other contingencies, but Europe and the United States together can. U.S. efforts should therefore prioritize joint production agreements and accelerate the coordination already underway through the coalition system. That means not only replacing weapons supplied to Ukraine, but also changing the regulatory framework — from environmental policies to investment restrictions — that limits the U.S.'s ability to build weapons with democratic partners and allies overseas. Through the Contact Group for the Defense of Ukraine, the West has created international coalitions for the supply of weapons. Now he has to change the way he creates weapons.
Increasing the flow of arms to Ukraine will require a new emphasis on creativity and adaptation. For example, there are alternatives to the production of traditional artillery shells that can make any foundry capable of helping to address the shortage of 155mm shells. The same is true of additive manufacturing, which can be used to create a diverse range of equipment closer to the front lines. US aid should boost more programs like FrankenSAM, which helped Ukraine combine legacy Soviet radars and launchers with NATO surface-to-air missiles.
Second, Ukraine has shown that the future of warfare lies in the use of multiple classes of networked unmanned systems to keep the adversary off balance. The proliferation of these systems has changed the battlefield. In the early stages of the war, teams of volunteer drone operators and special forces played an important role in slowing Russia's advance on Kiev. In recent fighting in Ukraine along the eastern front, first-person observation drones (FPVs) and drone-dropped munitions account for about 90 percent of casualties. It should be noted that these drones did not exist two years ago, which shows the breathtaking speed of adaptation on the battlefield. According to former Ukrainian commander-in-chief General Zaluzhny, warfare has changed and created a new form of combined arms that integrates "radio-electronic environmental control. . . and a combined operation using attack drones and cyber assets."
The United States can support this bottom-up military revolution by reducing the cost of supplying components to Ukraine and supporting deeper defense integration to avoid duplicating resources and programs that could fall prey to corruption. Much of the combat network used to support Zaluzhny's new war is based on off-the-shelf commercial hardware and software assembled in creative ways by Ukrainians. Accelerating this process means breaking International Traffic in Arms Restrictions (ITAR) and flooding Ukraine with the necessary components to continue producing drones and the battle networks that support them. This effort could include new ways to accelerate unconventional and new defense actors in the United States and use Ukraine as a combat laboratory for programs such as the Replicator Initiative. Most importantly, this means using traditional means of security cooperation, such as foreign military sales, direct sales and other bodies to support local efforts such as the Ukrainian drone army, a call for the production of 1 million FPVs and the creation of entirely new branches dedicated to the changing nature of warfare.
5. Sustaining Ukraine's economy and strengthening its democracy
Of the $175 billion earmarked for Ukraine's defense support, more than half is earmarked for military support. A relatively small portion, nearly $31 billion, went to provide Direct Budget Support (DBS) to the Ukrainian government to ensure it can meet basic obligations, such as paying teachers and health workers. Such aid is crucial because Ukraine currently spends nearly 60 percent of its revenue, including foreign aid, on defense. By comparison, the United States spent 12 percent of its revenue on defense in fiscal year 2022. Sending military support to Ukraine will not help much if the United States stands by and allows the Ukrainian economy and state infrastructure to collapse. But lawmakers have expressed caution about economic aid, as evidenced by the 154 House members voting in favor of an amendment to strip all non-military aid to Ukraine from the latest supplemental package.
The Biden administration's strategy must grapple with how to use limited resources to support the continued functioning of the Ukrainian economy. The economy has done remarkably well under these circumstances. The International Monetary Fund forecasts a 3.2 percent increase in Ukraine's gross domestic product in 2024. To maintain the tax base needed to finance active warfare, a stable economy is critical. The ability to export goods to the international market, fight corruption and increase foreign investment are key to ensuring continued economic growth.
Ukraine's gains in the Black Sea were critical in this regard. While Ukrainian grain exports via the Black Sea have not reached pre-full-scale Russian invasion levels, progress continues. In March 2024, 5.2 million tons of grain and corn were shipped abroad, compared to an average of 6.5 million tons per month prior to February 2022. Ensuring Ukraine's ability to export goods is a key area where security and economic goals are inextricably linked. Of the five major Black Sea ports operating before the full-scale invasion, only three remain operational and they are under increased attack. Enhanced air defense will protect not only Ukrainian civilians, but also their livelihoods.
In addition, Ukraine has made significant progress in the fight against corruption, although at the same time it is struggling with an active conflict within its borders. In 2015, Ukraine established NABU and SAPO. In 2023, NABU filed 238 formal charges and SAPO issued 100 indictments on corruption charges, up from 131 and 56 respectively in 2022. High-ranking officials have been implicated, including most recently the Minister of Agriculture. This does not indicate an increase in corruption, but the government's determination to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. Indeed, Transparency International's public perception of corruption scores show a 10-point improvement over the past 10 years. US support is critical to ensure the government continues to make progress on reforms, which is key to increasing much-needed foreign investment.
Increasing foreign investment in Ukraine will not only help the wartime economy, but also ensure rapid recovery and reconstruction after the end of the war. Currently, obtaining military insurance remains a major obstacle for American companies seeking to enter the Ukrainian market. Given the risks, funding remains scarce for those looking to do business in Ukraine. Proposals to address these challenges include more nuanced country risk mapping by the State Department and the creation of a US government-backed risk pool for businesses using interest from frozen Russian assets. As such, the administration's strategy paper should outline steps to increase investment in the US. In late 2023, the Biden administration appointed former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker as the US Special Representative for Ukraine's Economic Recovery and gave her a mandate to accelerate Ukraine's economic transformation. This position should be used to develop strategies to address these challenges in the strategy document approved by Congress.
US strategy must confront the oft-cited obstacles to increased private investment: the rule of law, corruption, and political instability. These sectors are key not only for economic prosperity, but also for the consolidation of democracy in Ukraine. Despite the war, Ukraine is making great strides in these areas, bolstered by a desire to secure long-term economic security by joining the European Union.
Conclusion
The need for a US strategy is urgent as the Ukrainians prepare for an expected Russian offensive this summer. The threat that Putin's despotic regime poses to the West has already crystallized in a series of recent arrests of Russian agents plotting acts of violent sabotage in Western Europe. The reality of the situation is that Ukraine will need additional financial support beyond the latest to continue defense and reconstruction activities. The strategy must be frank in this assessment, while making clear the alternative — sending US troops to Europe if Russia is not stopped in Ukraine — would cost far more in blood and money. A former Ukraine skeptic, House Speaker Mike Johnson said: "To put it bluntly, I would rather send bullets into Ukraine than American boys."
Although the Biden administration is tasked with writing the strategy, it is a task that the administration and Congress must undertake jointly. In the days and weeks leading up to the latest vote on aid to Ukraine, Russian-linked media and online accounts sought to expand narratives about the crisis on the US southern border. In doing so, they aimed to promote the argument that the United States should not spend money on protecting Ukraine's borders, but instead focus resources on its own borders. Russia seized on a similar narrative after the tragic wildfires in Hawaii in the fall of 2023, suggesting that the United States was spending taxpayer dollars in Ukraine at the expense of disaster recovery at home.
These narratives proved significant. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner said: "We see it coming directly from Russia. . . messages that are anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian messages, some of which we even hear uttered in the hall." House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul noted that Russian propaganda had "infected much of the base of my party." The US public remains divided over aid to Ukraine.
The administration clearly needs a strategy to communicate why supporting Ukraine is in the national security interest of the United States. After the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, President Biden did not address the nation on the importance of Ukraine until October 2023. However, members of Congress also have this responsibility because they are closer to their constituents and in a more well-positioned to make the case for why Ukraine should matter to Americans living in places like Lima, Ohio or Fort Worth, Texas. The 311 members of the House and 79 members of the Senate who voted in favor of the latest supplemental national security package must go on the offensive and explain their support to their constituents.
Ukraine needs more than US financial and military aid; this requires political leadership and courage. If Ukraine wants to win the war against Russia, the latest aid package cannot be the last one Congress passes.