Zelenskyy expresses confidence in US support amid wartime funding delays

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday he was confident the US would not “betray” his country by withholding crucial wartime funding as it fights off a Russian invasion.

Aid for Ukraine has been held up by Republicans in the US Congress, and the White House has warned that it will run out by the end of the year if not renewed.

“We are working very hard on this, and I am certain the United States of America will not betray us, and that on which we agreed in the United States will be fulfilled completely,” Zelenskyy said during a televised press briefing in Kyiv.

He added that financial assistance was key to Ukraine’s defence from Moscow’s full-scale attack, which is nearing its two-year mark and showing no signs of abating.

“They should know, our American partners, that we’re waiting for this aid. They know the details of what it’s needed for, how it will influence (the situation),” he said.

He also said he expected the European Union to approve a 50 billion euro aid package soon. EU leaders approved the launch of membership negotiations, but Hungary blocked the aid package.

“I’m confident that we have already achieved all this,” Zelenskyy said. “The question now is one of a certain matter of time.”

Ukraine hopes to plug a $43 billion budget deficit next year mostly with foreign aid, including 18.5 billion euros from the European Union and more than $8 billion from a US package that also contains vital military assistance.

‘Big victory’

Zelenskyy also provided updates on the war progress saying that Ukraine’s military had scored “a big victory” on the Black Sea, where Kyiv has launched successful strikes on Russian warships and secured martime trading routes.

“Everyone can appreciate that the Russian fleet was deprived of their almost total dominance in the Ukrainian Black Sea,” Zelenskyy said, adding that Moscow had tried to impose controls over “what we should do, what we should export, and so on.”

Additional mobilization

Zelenskyy had asked for an additional 450,000-500,000 people to be mobilized into the army, but that a final decision had not been taken.

He told top military and government officials were due to discuss “this very sensitive issue of mobilization” and that parliament would then consider it.

Zelenskyy said that conducting a mobilization at such a scale would require additional financing.

“Their view was… they proposed mobilizing an additional 450,000-500,000 people. This is a very serious number,” Zelenskyy said.

“I said that I would need more arguments to support this move. Because first of all, its a question of people, secondly, it’s a question of fairness, it’s a question of defence capability, and its a question of finances.”

Zelenskyy said that an additional 500 billion hryvnias ($13.5 billion) in financing would be required to support the mobilization if the decision would be taken.

Former defence minister Oleksii Reznikov said last summer that about 1 million people was engaged in Ukraine’s security and defence sector.

Russia’s ‘arrogance and murder’

Zelenskyy dismissed the idea of holding talks with Russia, even as his country faces difficult battles on the ground while struggling to stave off war fatigue among its allies.

“I don’t see a request from Russia. I don’t see it in their actions. I see only arrogance and murder in their rhetoric,” Zelenskyy said, referring to potential negotiations.

Prisoner exchange

Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that a recent slowdown in prisoner swaps with Moscow was due to unspecified “reasons” on the Russian side, but expressed hope that the swaps could soon resume.

The two sides held a number of prisoner swaps from the early months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and into this year. But their intensity slowed in 2023 and the last one took place in early August.

“It has indeed slowed down due to the Russian Federation’s own reasons, but these are very specific reasons. The track will open,” Zelenskyy told a press conference in Kyiv, without citing Russia’s reasons.

He added that Ukraine was currently working on the exchange of “a good enough number of our boys” and expressed hope the swap would be successful.

Last month, Ukraine’s human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said Russian prisoners in Ukraine had expressed a wish to be exchanged but Moscow was not interested in taking them back. Moscow did not comment on that assertion.

In November, the Ukrainian government said it had recorded 3,574 Ukrainian military and 763 civilians taken into Russian or Moscow-backed separatists’ captivity since 2014.

That figure included those who have already returned to Ukraine, it said, but likely did not reflect all the current prisoners.

Kyiv has already brought back 2,598 people from Russian captivity during 48 swaps, according to the Ukrainian military.

‘A million drones’

Ukraine has been working to increase its domestic weapons production since the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Drones increasingly play a central role on the battlefield and are used in large numbers by both Kyiv and Moscow.

“Regarding production, we will produce a million drones next year,” Zelenskyy told a televised news conference. “We will make a million. We will do everything to make it so. I know that’s how it will be.”

Since the start of the war, drone production in Ukraine has shot up, with dozens of companies developing and producing different models. Ukrainian military commanders have said more was needed.

Zelenskyy acknowledged challenges and said that his government team and the military worked on how to upgrade and modernize Soviet-era logistics and other procedures to ensure swift and easy drone supplies to combat units on the battlefield.

Zelenskyy also said Ukraine was looking for ways to increase domestic production of artillery ammunition, especially 155 mm shells. A senior army general told Reuters this week that frontline Ukrainian troops face shortages of artillery shells.