Still, only small batches of U.S. military aid have started to trickle into the front line, according to Ukrainian military commanders, who said it will take at least two months before supplies meet Kyiv’s needs to hold the line.

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday that the Biden administration was “trying to really accelerate the tempo” of U.S. weapons shipments to Ukraine following the monthslong delay by Congress. “The level of intensity being exhibited right now in terms of moving stuff is at a 10 out of 10,” he said.

The U.S. secretary of state, Antony Blinken, arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in an unannounced diplomatic mission to reassure Ukraine that it has American support.

Biden and Ukraine’s allies in Congress pushed for months to overcome resistance from hard-right Republican lawmakers in the House over renewed American support for repelling Russia’s invasion.

Final action only came after Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson pushed past that opposition last month to bring Ukraine aid to a vote.

The funding impasse dated back to August, when Biden made his first emergency spending request for Ukraine. Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, the U.S. has sent more than $44 billion worth of weapons, maintenance, training and spare parts to Ukraine.

Yushchenko acknowledged the huge losses that Ukraine has suffered in over two years of war, costing lives every day and forcing regular Ukrainians to join the fight. But he said that he was ashamed to hear arguments about “war fatigue” and that it shouldn’t be an excuse to stop fighting.

“Every day we pay with our lives,” Yushchenko said. “The lives of children and women, the lives of Ukrainian soldiers. Our infrastructure is being destroyed every day.”

Despite his harsh criticism of the U.S. delay in approving the latest military aid, Yushchenko acknowledged that Ukraine has been able to recapture a significant part of the occupied territory thanks to Western support.

More gains can be achieved if the allies are united, Yushchenko said.

“For Putin, the main geopolitical challenge is freedom and democracy. And today he is using all available resources to show that the Western world is weak” and unable to coalesce, Yushchenko said.

He has said he believes victory for Ukraine is inevitable, given the sacrifice of the country’s citizens to fight, and sees the war as a larger, defining battle to defend democracy from tyranny and imperialism.

Yushchenko came to power as a popular opposition leader in the 2004 Orange Revolution protests, beating Putin’s preferred candidate. As president he adamantly pushed to move Ukraine out of Moscow’s shadow and integrate more closely with Western Europe.

But his presidency was marked by political skirmishing that paralyzed government and prevented any of his promised reforms from being passed. He lost power amid a plunging Ukrainian economy during the 2008 global financial crisis and tensions with Russia highlighted by a clash over gas prices.

Yushchenko survived a dioxin poisoning during his 2004 election campaign, and several former Russian intelligence officers accused Moscow of being behind the poisoning.

The poisoning forced Yushchenko to temporarily abandon campaign activities in the midst of Ukraine’s hotly contested presidential race, and severely disfigured his face. But it also earned him the sympathy of many Ukrainians. He has said he subsequently underwent more than two dozen surgeries.