Welcome to Pushback. I'm Aaron Mate.

Joining me is Seth Harp. He is an investigative journalist and a rock war veteran, who is a

contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine. Recently was in Ukraine for a report that will come

out soon in Harper's Magazine. Seth Harp, thank you for joining me.

Thanks, Aaron. Thanks for having me. I first want to get your reaction to something that was just

passed in Congress, something like $40 billion more dollars for the proxy war in Ukraine. Most of that

will be spent on military assistance. 57 members of Congress voted against it.

All of them were Republicans.

Zero Democrats voted to oppose this bill.

Your thoughts on this measure and how it will impact the war in Ukraine right now?

I mean, I should say that some part of me is glad that the Ukrainians are getting weapons

so that they can resist the Russian invaders in their country.

On the other hand, it's also depressing to see, you know, just at a time when it seemed like

U.S. militarism might be on the way after the final defeat in Afghanistan that we might see some reinvestment of all that money that's for the past several decades gone, you know, been plowed into the military industrial complex, be, you know, redistributed to where it's sorely needed in this country. But, you know, you see that they, well, Congress can't pass things like a minimum wage and they can't, you know, provide

benefits to people that are desperately need for it. It's just, you know, they're able with

lightning speed to, you know, approve a grant of $40 billion to Ukraine for a weapon. It's pretty

amazing, but, you know,, but not all that surprising.

And when you say that you're happy that Ukrainians are getting weapons to resist Russia's invasion,

from what you could tell on the ground, I mean, how have U.S. weapons impacted the war so far?

It's really difficult to say because there's such limited access, like, front lines and places

where fighting is actually taking place.

Like, it's kind of this zone of almost mystery where, you know, concentrated around the areas

...