U.S. Cash for Ukraine DRIES UP as Zelensky Hits Davos for ANOTHER CHECK: Rising Reacts

Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave discuss updates on the Ukraine-Russia War. #Zelenksy
Originally aired: Jan 16, 2024

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Less than a year ago a stablishment support for Ukraine was so high that zilinski received a warm welcome at the Grammys cut to the present the US has now suspended military aid to Ukraine here’s John Kirby making that announcement you uh updates uh on uh military assistance to Ukraine I mean

Has the has the well really run dry here or what does it look like we we have issued last uh draw down package that that we had funding to support um and that’s why it’s it’s uh critical that that Congress move on that National Security Supplemental request and we get

More funding the the the assistance that we provided um has now ground to a halt the attacks that the Russians are conducting uh are only increasing and now as I talked about earlier this week they’re using North Korean ballistic missiles to do their dirty work so um

The the need is acute right now particularly in these winter months Ukraine will likely not receive any more funding unless Congress passes a new spending package a deal is seemingly contingent on some sort of compromise on Republican demands regarding the southern border so far the US has directed more than $75 billion in

Military financial and humanitarian support to Ukraine concerns about Ukraine aren’t just financially focused the recent death of Gonzalo lra in a Ukrainian jail cell has raised questions about the state of civil liberties in the country lra was a Chilean American filmmaker and blogger who was arrested after Distributing what the Ukrainian

Government described as Pro Kremlin propaganda now his father claims he was being abused in prison and that he would likely die there if nothing was done to free him here’s lra’s last public statement to that effect the Genesis of this whole situation is because I had an opinion

That went against the narrative and that’s why I went to prison and that’s why why if I’m arrested again I will die in prison so I ask you please as many people as possible the American State Department knows exactly who I am and the situation I’m currently involved in and they

Know the Fate that awaits me now friend of the show Glenn Greenwald weighed in saying neither Biden nor his top officials ever once uttered a word about Gonzalo lero despite his being an American imprisoned by Ukraine for speaking out and despite the most unhinged ukrainians threatening lra’s

Life that signal to Ukraine that they could do anything to him again that’s from Glenn Greenwald so here we are at a point where there is no more Aid money for Ukraine um now that’s not for lack of trying on the administration’s part uh right now zilinski is at Davos for

The world economic Forum meeting um our secretary of state Anthony blinkin is there as well and said according to the AP that he’s determined to keep supporting Ukraine we’re working very closely with Congress in order to do that so the Biden Administration would certainly like to send more money to

Ukraine certain Republican uh leaders like Mitch McConnell would as well but it is um it is is not for certain right now because there is an appetite to hold out there’s an exhaustion with this funding of the Ukrainian war effort which has not brought Ukraine any closer

To prevailing over Russia um the time for negotiations and peace talks is now it was yesterday it was the week and the months before that as well but here we are yeah we’re now getting uh an admission acknowledgement uh that there were an opportunity to settle this conflict about a month out from

Russia’s Invasion and that now Ukraine is actually in a less good negotiating position because now it has lost what 500,000 people or so have died in this conflict uh they are in the middle of this winter they’re not enjoying the broad both Financial and kind of philosophical support from the world it

Does seem like America is now distracted by its new shiny war in the Middle East and it’s being left against the way uh by the wayside and of course you do have this m um departure from the bipartisan blob consensus on wanting to uh fund the

War in Ukraine and any other aoxy War to quote unquote weaken Russia or weaken America has perceived uh economic uh enemies uh and but for the obstruction that the freedom caucus presented and the tumult that we saw around the speakership vot over the course of this

Year I don’t know that there would be as much resistance to the idea of continuing the multi-billion dollars of Aid packages that have been going out of the door for the last uh two years now now each of those votes were were so perfunctory we so well of course we’re

Going to offer more money and on and on and on right now to this question of this freedom of speech and uh the journalist who has now died in jail I’m really struck by the difference between how Evan gersich has been covered by the liberal media at the correspondence

Dinner um there were free Evan buttons people have been very concerned about that while she Journal reporter who was arrested uh in Russia while on a reporting trip uh and compare that to how gonzala L has been treated now obviously some of this is a credentialism sort of an issue a Wall

Street Journal reporter has seen as much more credible than someone like lra who had a more online sort of a career he was a pickup artist that one point um he I think was more known in kind of alternative right online spaces that being said the stated reason for his

Arrest in Ukraine was you know anti- Ukraine propaganda he was arguing that there was some precedence for the invasion of Russia and again we see United States many people who have simply argued for some historical context here have been called Putin puppets been told that they’re cheering on Russia’s Invasion when in fact

They’re simply saying well this is why the Invasion happened it seems like he was doing some of that kind of reporting and Ukraine accused him of justifying or cheering on Russia’s Invasion and in Ukraine that is not just something that gets you condemned on Twitter something

That can get you thrown in jail and dead yeah I I think that’s very fair to point out and it’s not from my point of view to to discourage or diminish the support for Evan gersovitz who’s being wholly unjustly held by Russia absolutely an attack on the Free Press and On free

Speech but what we see time and time again from mainstream media is it’s so selective uh who who benefits from that sympathy and he deserves it he absolutely there’s no question he deserves it but does someone like Julian Assange get that level of of of support and validation it it’s so it’s exact

It’s a credentialism thing uh the media is is reluctant to recognize um victims of of censorship imprisonment do process violations when it’s not in their when it’s someone who’s aranged from their club and that is the that’s exactly what’s going on here um you know again

It it just it makes you think what’s actually at stake is this a conflict between are we are we defending the west and Western values and the enlightenment when a country Ukraine and its government has suspended opposition parties has suspended alternative media has jailed um dissenters that makes it that puts us to

Well what are we actually fighting here what are we fighting to defend if uh if our supposed Ally is having to to result to um to to behavior that we condemn in Russia we condemn when it’s China we condemn when it’s this geopolitical rival and I think it makes the whole

Project very philosophically fraught because what’s actually at stake is not those values but territory territory that Russia and Ukraine contest where the underlying people have some Ukrainian loyalty but also a lot of Russian loyalty and should probably have some say in which country they’re part

Of it’s not a conflict of of Visions or of global power it’s it’s over territory well I would say that it’s not just about the territory it’s about the territory was a proxy battle for uh economic dominance on the global stage there’s a reason that we’re fighting

With Russia and that we had domino theory in the middle part of the last century and we had a uh we were all inculcated with the idea that it was America’s Duty um and right to go to war to defeat communism to force other countries to adopt our own economic

Worldview and you don’t have to person Al like and support communism to be able to see that we would certainly bristle at the idea that another Power felt entitled to use military force and to undermine what we have decided democratically in our country is the way

That we’d like to run our government and so remember that preceding this conflict and this is the kind of reporting that I suspect that lra got got in trouble for that there was a dispute as to whether or not the disputed regions in the East were going to be allowed to have

Independent vote about whether or not they wanted to accept a kind of Western IMF uh model controlling the C country or take a package an econom deal and package that was being offered by Russia and the concern was that if Democratic vote uh elections were allowed that

Russia was the likely choice and does America want allow its own economic dominance to falter if people are openly choosing an alternative so I but I think your your broader point is completely right I mean this is a country the the the the law under which he was thrown in

Jail is article 46-2 of the country’s criminal code which prevents quote justifying Russian aggression against Ukraine you can be thrown in jail for the crime of having a political opinion that is characterized as quote justifying Russian AG aggression against Ukraine I can’t think of anything less

In line with our own free speech values um an interest than that and it will be very interesting to see if any Biden officials are forced to weigh in on the death of this particular American citizen abroad yeah and I will be very interesting to continue to follow the

Funding issue uh will there be more support for Ukraine if Republicans are able to get their way on the southern border um be very interesting to see more Rising right after this