WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE

Julia Davis

Oct. 02, 2023

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty

Russian experts have long predicted that it’s only a matter of time before U.S. aid to Ukraineis jeopardized by war fatigue and domestic issues. The MAGA branch of the Republican Party is currently delivering in spades, as a stopgap funding bill that was passed by Congress to avert a shutdown excluded much-needed funding for Ukraine.

As a special bonus for supporters of the Russian war effort, Elon Musk over the weekend mocked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on X (formerly Twitter) for seeking international support to help his country repel a genocidal aggressor.

Predictably, Musk’s cruelty brought joy to Putin’s mouthpieces. During Monday’s broadcast of 60 Minutes, state TV host Olga Skabeeva noted, “It’s impossible not to notice that the West is getting sick not only of Zelensky but Ukraine as a whole, as a circumstance that is constantly siphoning away their money. Elon Musk is magnificent, he is wonderful and perhaps he really is our agent! He published a meme about a beggar that recently became popular, using Zelensky’s face instead of that person. It says, ‘When it’s been five minutes and you haven’t asked for a billion dollars in aid.’”

Skabeeva mentioned the congressional bill that specifically omitted aid to Ukraine and cheerfully noted, “Only recently, it was impossible to even imagine anything like this!”

She also surmised, “Unless something changes in the next 45 days, the United States will certainly stop helping Ukraine!” Skabeeva described Ukraine as “a walking corpse” and opined that the West is ready to write it off as a loss. Thrilled with Musk’s contribution to the Russian trove of anti-Ukrainian propaganda, Skabeeva praised his wealth, his commentary, and the “exquisite hat” he recently donned during a visit to the southern U.S. border.

State Duma deputy Andrey Isayev concurred, saying, “The strategy of our president turned out to be quite wise. Just a short while ago, the West seemed to be a consolidated and united front that was fighting against us. This consolidation keeps on fading.”

Isayev pointed out, “We remember that when Zelensky went to the United States one year ago, he received a standing ovation in their parliament.” He noted that this year, the president of Ukraine wasn’t even allowed to speak before Congress and later, both the Republicans and the Democrats voted for a bill that cut out funding for Ukraine. Isayev concluded, “We have arrived!”

Political scientist Vladimir Kornilov added that the draft law of the Lend-Lease Act, which authorized the Biden administration to lend or lease military equipment to Ukraine and other Eastern European countries, quietly expired Sep. 30 without being extended. He concluded that the program represented the faith of the West in Ukraine’s eventual victory and the failure to renew it signifies that U.S. faith and commitment to the war effort expired along with the law.

Dmitry Abzalov, Director of Russia’s Center for Strategic Communications, said that the changes Russia is observing in the United States would be unthinkable just one year earlier. He surmised that the diminishing U.S. support will bear fruit in the theater of military operations in the near future, leading to the decline in Western support overall and the corresponding deterioration of Ukraine’s defense capabilities.

Some of the most prominent Kremlin mouthpieces repeatedly reiterated that Putin’s invasion is nothing more than a land grab and a gambit to restore the Russian empire, with an unabashedly genocidal agenda towards Ukraine. Nonetheless, the moral clarity on this issue is taking the back seat to domestic power struggles in the United States.

During the evening broadcast of 60 Minutes, Skabeeva was still praising Musk for his anti-Ukrainian stance. She proudly noted that “the wealthiest person in the world” is now known as “Elon Moskal,” meaning “Elon the Muscovite.”

Julia Davis

@JuliaDavisNews