‘If Russia Balks, the US Could Reopen the Spigot of Aid’– Ukraine at War Update for Nov. 28

There is about $6.8 billion left in the US president’s approved coffers to give to Ukraine, remaining from the roughly $61 billion in weapons appropriations passed by Congress this spring, and experts worry that President Joe Biden will not be able to send those weapons to Kyiv in time before President-elect Donald Trump takes over in late January.

It remains unclear whether Trump will use whatever remaining budget there is to provide Ukraine with much-needed defenses.

“Ending the war in Ukraine is near the top of the list, if not at the top of the list of Trump’s priorities,” noted CNN special political correspondent Jeff Zeleny on Wednesday, adding that those funds are “unlikely to be used up” in time, and then it’s “all up to Trump.”

Evelyn Farkas of the McCain Institute, recently returned from Ukraine, told the network, “This war is not popular in Russia, but Putin is not likely to want to give up territory gained in Ukraine.” She noted that the incoming administration is expected to issue an ultimatum to both sides near the beginning of the new term and that it is “likely that Trump will cut off assistance if Ukraine doesn’t play ball.”

On the other hand, noted Col. Cedric Lighton on the same network, “If Russia balks, the US could reopen the spigot of aid.”

On Wednesday, Trump revealed that he was nominating staunch loyalist and retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg as his Ukraine envoy, charged with ending the nearly three-year Russian invasion.

Other Topics of Interest

Putin Seeks to Shore Up Ties on Visit to ’Friendly’ Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is a member of the Moscow-led CSTO security alliance but has expressed concern about the almost three-year war, which Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has refused to condone.

A fixture on the cable news circuit, the 80-year-old national security veteran co-wrote an academic paper earlier this year calling for Washington to leverage military aid as a means of pushing for peace talks.

“General Kellogg at least has an understanding of the military situation in Ukraine,” Col. Lighton said when comparing the general with other potential picks for the Ukraine war tsar, such as Russia-born lawyer and close Trump aide Boris Epshteyn.

Elon Musk says Alexander Vindman committed “treason” and will “pay the appropriate penalty”

The world’s richest man and Donald Trump’s pick to dismantle what he deems are unnecessary government positions set his sights on Alexander Vindman on Wednesday, a Trump whistleblower and more recently an op-ed contributor to Kyiv Post.

Elon Musk took to his own social media platform on Wednesday to say that Vindman “is on the payroll of Ukrainian oligarchs and has committed treason against the United States, for which he will pay the appropriate penalty.”

Vindman was subpoenaed to testify before Congressional investigators on October 29, 2019, as part of the US House of Representatives’ impeachment of Donald Trump for soliciting Moscow’s interference in the 2016 elections. Vindman told investigators that “I became aware of outside influencers promoting a false and alternative narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency.”

Trump ultimately was impeached on Dec. 19 of that year on those charges, but was acquitted by the then-Republican-controlled Senate. He was again impeached in January 2021 for fomenting an attempted, deadly overthrow of the US government, denying the results of the verified presidential elections in 2020, which he lost. Once again, his Republican allies in the Senate lacked the courage to convict him.

After having contributed approximately $150 million to Republican candidates in 2024, Musk, the Tesla founder and owner of social media platform X, appears to have purchased himself a spot as an “efficiency expert” on Trump’s team, in a country that at one time was considered a leading example of democracy in the world, rather than a Russian-style oligarchy.

Since then, the South-Africa-born billionaire has squared off against the multi-millionaire president-elect’s political rivals, and his very own enemies, after the government’s attempts to clean up political conspiracy theories online and the Kremlin’s paid propaganda on those same social networks threatened what the erratic entrepreneur called “free speech”.

Since his knighting as incoming government-efficiency tsar, Musk has retweeted two X posts that revealed the individual names of people holding four climate-related positions in government.

According to CNN, “Each post has been viewed tens of millions of times, and the individuals named have been subjected to a barrage of negative attention. At least one of the four women named has deleted her social media accounts” as a result.

Biden recommends lowering the Ukrainian military recruitment age

As the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) struggle with dwindling troop numbers, and current AFU soldiers serving on the front openly complain that the younger generation is unwilling to fight, the White House on Wednesday reportedly recommended that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lower the current conscription age from 25 years old to 18, as it is in the United States.

“The simple truth is that Ukraine is not currently mobilizing or training enough soldiers to replace their battlefield losses while keeping pace with Russia’s growing military,” a US official was quoted by French daily Le Monde as saying, on the condition of anonymity.

Analysts have noted that lowering the age of conscription is a very risky political position for Zelensky, who has not had to face regular presidential elections because of the ongoing war.

 “If Trump does bring peace, and Ukraine does have elections, Zelensky will be an unpopular president because he lowered the recruitment age from 25,” Farkas noted.

The minimum age of military recruitment in the US is lower than the permissible age to purchase tobacco or alcohol, which is 21 years old. A famous pop song in the United States released in 1985 reminded Americans that the average age of US combat soldiers in the Vietnam War was 19.