With no major progress, Ukrainian officials fear flows of Western arms could dry up
U.S. officials have told their Ukrainian counterparts that Washington’s support for their war effort depends on the success of a sustained counteroffensive against Russian forces, Politico reported Thursday. So far, the offensive has failed and Ukraine has lost thousands of people.
US President Biden repeatedly pledges support for Ukraine “As long as it takes.” However, when Ukrainian officials recently asked the U.S. State Department and National Security Council whether they could count on that support to continue into next year’s election season and a possible change of power in the White House, they were told “Let’s see how the counter-offensive plays out,” Politico reports.
Former Ukrainian deputy prime minister Ivanna Klimpush-Tsintsadze told the US news website that the talks made her “After this fiscal year, the United States will continue to provide the same level of support to Ukraine,” September ends.
After months of mixed messages from Kiev — and Western media reports of depleted stocks and general unpreparedness — Ukrainian forces launched their long-awaited counteroffensive against Russian forces about two weeks ago. Assaulting multiple parts of the front in the Donetsk and Zaporozhye regions, Ukraine has so far failed to break through Russia’s multilayered defensive trenches, minefields and anti-tank obstacles.
As Ukraine’s western-supplied air defenses degraded from constant missile and drone attacks, Russian air support went unpunished, inflicting devastating losses on the Ukrainian military. As of Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry counted 7,500 Ukrainian soldiers killed or wounded, not counting those hit by high-precision missiles and air strikes behind the front lines.
The video of the Western tank and armored vehicle crash was circulated on the Internet. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Kiev had fallen “At least 160 tanks and 360 armored vehicles.” The president estimated that the hardware destroyed by Russian forces accounted for 25% to 30% of all Western military equipment supplied to Ukraine.
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In public, Western officials have hedged their bets, leaving Kiev to define what a victorious offensive would look like and downplaying expectations for a push into Crimea, as promised by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky like that. U.S. and European officials would consider the offensive a success if Ukrainian forces cut off Russia’s land bridge with Crimea and managed to hold on to any territory captured in that direction, according to The New York Times.
The Times quoted European diplomats as saying “The defeat looks like a Ukrainian army that hasn’t learned to fight, has lost the equipment they’ve been given in recent months, and hasn’t gained any territory to prove it.”
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