If Ukraine loses the war with Russia there will be a “Third World War,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told the BBC, urging the United States Congress to approve an aid package that has been stalled for months in that instance.
Shmyhal expressed “cautious optimism” that U.S. lawmakers will likely pass the hotly contested foreign aid bill, which has $61 billion earmarked for Kyiv.
The proposal, which is being voted on in the US House of Representatives on Saturday, also includes funding for both Israel and the Indo-Pacific.
Speaking to the BBC in Washington on Wednesday, Prime Minister Shmyhal said of US security assistance: “We need this money for yesterday, not for tomorrow or today.”
“If we do not protect it… Ukraine will fall,” he added. “And the global security system will be destroyed… and everyone will need to find… a new security system.
“Or there will be many conflicts, many types of wars like that, and at the end of the day, this could lead to World War III.”
This is not the first time that Ukraine has issued such an alarming warning about the consequences of its possible defeat.
Last year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that if Russia wins the conflict, it could invade Poland, triggering World War III.
But Kremlin officials have ridiculed such claims as Western alarmism.
Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed as “complete nonsense” suggestions that Russia might one day attack Eastern Europe.
Russia has never attacked a country within NATO, including Poland. NATO’s collective defense pact means that an attack on one member constitutes an attack on all.
In Wednesday’s interview, Shmyhal was asked about a recent statement by the chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, Republican Michael McCaul, who suggested that members of his own party were being “infected” by Russian propaganda.
Shmyhal said: “We must understand that disinformation and propaganda are influencing many people here in the United States and in the European Union on many people, just as in Ukraine.”
Right opposition
Opposition from the right wing of the Republican Party has blocked another economic aid package to Ukraine for months.
Some of those lawmakers oppose sending tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid if funding for border security between the United States and Mexico is not first approved.
These conservatives also dismissed as slanderous any suggestion that they are being duped by the Kremlin.
US President Joe Biden said in a statement on Wednesday that he would sign the package into law immediately once it passes Congress “to send a message to the world: we stand with our friends.”
Ukraine is critically dependent on weapons supplies from the United States and the West to continue fighting Russia, which has an abundance of artillery ammunition.
The months of Congressional gridlock is already having profound effects on the battlefield.
Ukraine has been outmanned and outgunned and forced to withdraw due to ammunition rationing and falling morale.
In February, it withdrew from Avdiivka, a town near occupied Donetsk that it had controlled since the conflict began in 2014.
Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, a general who oversaw the withdrawal, cited a 10-fold advantage over one of his enemies in artillery ammunition and said withdrawing after months of fighting was “the only correct solution.”
President Zelensky attributed the incident to an “artificial weapons deficit” and made urgent calls to obtain more military aid to avoid a “catastrophic” situation.
President Biden said the reason for the withdrawal had been “declining supplies as a result of congressional inaction” in his country.
The loss of Avdiivka It was the most serious for Ukraine since its troops withdrew from Bakhmut in May 2023..
Both came after months of war of attrition in which Russian forces leveled buildings with massive artillery and sent waves of troops to the front.
General Richard Barrons, former commander of the United Kingdom’s Joint Forces Command, recently stated that he fears Ukraine will face defeat this year unless it is given the weapons and ammunition it needs to secure its ranks.
“We are seeing Russia sweep the front line, using a five-to-one advantage in artillery, ammunition and a surplus of personnel,” he said.
“Ukraine could feel like it can’t win. And when it gets to that point, why would people want to fight and die?”
Both sides have suffered heavy losses in the battles, but mounting casualties have left Ukraine short of troops, unlike Russia.
Earlier this month, the Ukrainian government lowered the recruitment age from 27 to 25. in an effort to recruit hundreds of thousands of new troops.
President Zelensky has said that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since 2022. However, US officials believe that at least 70,000 have been killed and many more are wounded.
A BBC investigation estimates that at least 50,000 Russian soldiers have died. Tens of thousands are believed to have been injured.
Russia has transformed its industrial base into a wartime economy: spends 40% of its national budget on weapons while signing deals with Iran and North Korea for munitions, missiles and drones.
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