Desperate Ukraine tells U.S. ‘bureaucracy’ is no excuse for failing

On Apr 10, 2022

A monument to Taras Shevchenko is seen near a residential building destroyed by the russian army shelling in Borodyanka, Kyiv Region, north-central Ukraine.

Hennadii Minchenko | Nurphoto | Getty Images

WASHINGTON – A Ukrainian delegation warned U.S. officials in Washington this week that security assistance packages are not arriving quick enough in the besieged country, a plea that comes amid Western security claims that the Kremlin will soon intensify its military campaign.

Over the past week, the delegation of Ukrainian civil society advocates, military veterans and former government officials met with 45 lawmakers, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, officials at the departments of State and Defense and the National Security Council at the White House.

“It’s the 44th day of the war that we were supposed to lose on the third day,” began Daria Kaleniuk, who runs Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center, a national organization that assists Ukraine’s parliament and prosecutor’s office.

“What we need now is to arm our military and our territorial defense units to be able to prevent more graves in the backyards of innocent people,” she said on Friday.

Kaleniuk added that U.S. lawmakers and Biden administration officials outlined a number of justifications for why certain weapons systems cannot be delivered, citing logistics issues, lack of inventory and bureaucratic limitations.

“The six-year-old boy who is visiting his mother’s grave in his backyard does not want to hear about bureaucracy as an excuse for not delivering weapons to Ukraine,” Kaleniuk said.

“This is an extraordinary situation where extraordinary measures have to be done. Lift your bureaucracy, lift it now. The president of the United States has huge power, Congress has huge power. We know it’s possible,” she added.

In the courtyard of their house, Vlad Tanyuk, 6, stands near the grave of his mother Ira Tanyuk, who died because of starvation and stress due to the war, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 4, 2022.

Rodrigo Abd | AP

Earlier in the week, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also made a plea to NATO allies to catalyze the delivery of their arms commitments.

“Either you help us now, and I’m speaking about days not weeks, or your help will come too late,” Kuleba told reporters at NATO’s headquarters on April 7.

“I have no doubt that Ukraine will have the weapons necessary to fight. The question is the timeline. This discussion is not about the list of weapons. The discussion is about the timeline when do we get them and this is crucial,” he said, adding “people are dying today, the offensive is unfolding today.”

When asked about Kuleba’s comments, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken downplayed concerns that allies were withholding weapons explicitly requested by Ukraine.

“They’re coming forward with new systems that they think would be helpful and effective,” Blinken said from NATO’s headquarters.

“We put our own…