The Biden administration on Monday sent Congress an urgent warning about the need to approve tens of billions of dollars in military and economic assistance to Ukraine, saying Kyiv’s war effort to defend itself from Russia’s invasion may grind to a halt without it.

In a letter to House and Senate leaders and also released publicly, Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young warned the U.S. will run out of funding to send weapons and assistance to Ukraine by the end of the year, saying that would “kneecap” Ukraine on the battlefield.

She added that the U.S. already has run out of money that it has used to prop up Ukraine’s economy, and “if Ukraine’s economy collapses, they will not be able to keep fighting, full stop.”

  • interceder270@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    What’s embarrassing is the sunk-cost fallacy people are applying to Ukraine.

    It seems most people on these forums legitimately believed Ukraine would blaze past Russia in their counteroffensive after getting Western weapons. When that didn’t happen, nobody came out and said “we were wrong.” It’s just doubling-down, lol.

    It’s sad how many people legitimately believe the outcome of this war is already decided in Ukraine’s favor. Just shows how effective propaganda is at making people believe fantasies.

    • rbesfe@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      The outcome is still very much undecided, which is why it’s so important that we give Ukraine all the aid we can

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      “Sunk cost” isn’t applicable because human lives don’t have a fucking price.

      • interceder270@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I don’t think you understand what the fallacy is if you think that’s the case.

        If Ukraine loses, then what good has all their aid actually done?

        • TallonMetroid@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Well, for one, Russia will have been forced to expend a shitton of lives and war materiel, and will be forced to expend a shitton more putting down the resultant Ukrainian insurgency. Crippling the Russian military for a generation is no small thing.

          • MediciPrime@midwest.social
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            1 year ago

            The Russian military is now stronger than before the war started. So is their damn ruble. We were fed and are still being fed a bunch of malarkey.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          1 year ago

          Ukraine don’t need to beat Russia they simply need to make the war so painful that they withdraw it’s not like they have to counter invade

    • Suspicious
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      1 year ago

      The moment people realised Ukraine didn’t get immediately steamrolled pretty much everyone who does war analysis profesionaly that I saw were saying this would be a pretty long war that could go either way

      • interceder270@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That’s fair, all of them thought Ukraine would get wrecked and now they’re saying Ukraine doesn’t have a chance.

    • SCB@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The less the outcome is already decided, the more I support giving them money.

      I think it’s weird you’d find the opposite to be true.

      • interceder270@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I think it’s weird you’d find the opposite to be true.

        Probably because you don’t understand the sunk-cost fallacy.

        • SCB@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It’s already been explained that this is not a sunk-cost situation. The US hasn’t even given very much to Ukraine, in terms of total military expenditure

    • avrachan@lemmings.world
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      1 year ago

      people think that prolonging this war regardless of the human sufferings in Ukraine is fine as long as it is not good for Russia.

      A ceasefire and truce would save countless Ukrainian lives. But obviously it’s not very cool - fighting to the last man and woman Hitler style is cool and fun to cheer on from far away.