Russia has said US politicians' support for €57 billion more in aid for Ukraine showed that Washington is wading much deeper into a hybrid war against Moscow that will end in humiliation on a par with the Vietnam or Afghanistan conflicts.
President Vladimir Putin's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine has touched off the worst fall-out in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, according to Russian and US diplomats.
Yesterday, the US House of Representatives passed with broad bipartisan support a €89 billion legislative package providing security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, over bitter objections from some far-right Republicans.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it was clear that the United States wanted Ukraine "to fight to the last Ukrainian" including with attacks on Russian sovereign territory and civilians.
"Washington's deeper and deeper immersion in the hybrid war against Russia will turn into a loud and humiliating fiasco for United States such as Vietnam and Afghanistan," Ms Zakharova said.
Russia, she said, will give "an unconditional and resolute response" to the US move to get more involved in the Ukraine war.
US Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns warned last week that without more US military support Ukraine could lose on the battlefield, but that with support Kyiv's forces could hold their own this year.
The United States has repeatedly ruled out sending its own or other NATO-member troops to Ukraine, which is fighting a grinding artillery and drone war with Russia along a heavily fortified 1,000km front.
The United States lost more than 58,000 military personnel in the 1955-75 Vietnam War, which ended with Communist North Vietnam's victory and takeover of the South, while hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed.
In the 2001-2021 war in Afghanistan, the US reported 2,459 dead and over 20,000 wounded in the conflict which ended with the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces and the return to power of the Islamist Taliban movement.
The Soviet Union lost 14,453 personnel in the 1979-1989 war in Afghanistan. Civilian deaths in both the wars in Afghanistan were vast.
Ukraine war
Russia now controls about 18% of Ukraine, in the east and south of its neighbour, and has been incrementally gaining ground since the failure of Kyiv's 2023 counter-offensive to make any serious inroads against Russian troops dug in behind minefields patrolled by drones and guarded by heavy artillery.
Ukraine has for months been begging the United States to release more money and weapons to help it fight, though Russian officials have asserted that US aid will not change the ultimate course of the war.
Maria Zakharova said that ordinary Ukrainians were being "forcibly driven to slaughter as "cannon fodder" but that the United States was now no longer betting on a Ukrainian victory against Russia.
Washington, she said, was hoping Ukraine could hold on until the US presidential election in November.
The US legislative package includes measures that would allow the US to seize billions of dollars' worth of Russian assets frozen by sanctions imposed on Moscow.
That, said Ms Zakharova, was simply "theft", adding that the true beneficiaries of the whole package were US defence companies.
The leaders of the West and Ukraine have cast the war in Ukraine as an imperial-style land-grab showing that post-Soviet Russia is one of the top two biggest nation-state threats to global stability, alongside China.
President Putin presents the war as part of a much broader struggle with the US, which he says ignored Moscow's interests after the Soviet Union's 1991 break-up and then plotted to cleave Russia apart and grab its natural resources.
The West denies that it wants to destroy Russia, which in turn denies that it intends to invade any NATO member state.
Zelensky urges speedy passage of Ukraine aid in US Senate
Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the passage of €57bn in aid for Ukraine but urged Washington to quickly turn the bill into law and proceed with the actual transfer of weapons, saying long-range arms and air defence systems were top priorities.
In an interview with NBC's Meet the Press programme, Mr Zelensky said the passage of the bill would send a powerful message to Russia that Washington stands by Kyiv and that it would not be "a second Afghanistan".
"I think this support will really strengthen the armed forces of Ukraine and we will have a chance for victory," Mr Zelensky said through an interpreter.
During the interview, he repeatedly urged US politicians to take swift action to pass the bill in the Senate.
He said Ukraine urgently needed US long-range weapons and air defence systems to turn around its fortunes on the battlefield.
"This is crucial. These are the priorities now," Mr Zelensky said.
He said the assistance would save lives and "bring a just end" to the war with Russia.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
"I am grateful to the United States House of Representatives, both parties, and personally Speaker Mike Johnson for the decision that keeps history on the right track," Mr Zelensky wrote on X.
The president said the bill "will keep the war from expanding, save thousands and thousands of lives, and help both of our nations to become stronger".
Minutes later, in his nightly video address, the president said the assistance "will be felt by our soldiers on the frontlines" and praised the role of "American leadership" in preserving a rules-based international order.
"We will certainly use American support to strengthen both our nations and bring a just end to this war. A war that Putin must lose."
The bills making up the legislative package provide €57bn to Ukraine, including €21bn to replenish US weapons, stocks and facilities.
'Extraordinary support' - Ukraine minister
The US Senate, which passed a similar measure two months ago, is expected to approve the current bills next week and pass them on to President Joe Biden to sign.
Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko pointed to the legislation's provision of $7.8bn for budget support.
"This is the extraordinary support we need to maintain financial stability and prevail," he wrote on X.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, writing on Telegram, said passage of the bill was evidence that the United States showed "leadership and resolve" in fighting for peace and security.
Mr Shmyhal expressed thanks for approval of provisions that would help set the stage for the United States to confiscate Russian assets and hand them over to Ukraine for rebuilding after the destruction of the war.
"We will receive an important resource for victory and reconstruction," he wrote on Telegram. "I call on other countries where Russian assets are held to follow this example."
Frontline village captured - Russia
Meanwhile, Russia said its forces had completely captured Bogdanivka, a frontline village less than 3km northeast from the Ukrainian-held town of Chasiv Yar.
Moscow has made a number of gains on the front in recent months, pressing its advantage as Kyiv struggles with shortages of vital munitions from its Western allies.
"Units of the southern grouping of troops have completely liberated the settlement of Bogdanivka," Russia's defence ministry said in a daily briefing.
Bogdanivka lies between Chasiv Yar and Bakhmut, a Ukrainian city that Moscow's forces claimed to fully capture in May 2023 after one of the bloodiest battles of Moscow's two-year offensive.
Kyiv's forces said earlier this month that the battlefield situation around Chasiv Yar was "difficult and tense", and that Russia was unleashing constant fire.
Chasiv Yar, which had a population of around 13,000 before the conflict, has been largely destroyed by fighting and most of its residents have fled.
