When recalcitrant MAGA-wing House Republicans dug in, blocking the flow of U.S. arms and ammunition to Ukraine for six months, it was the gift that kept on giving to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
As Ukraine ran short of air defense and artillery ammunition, Russia was handed a window to rebuild its army with fresh conscripts, retool its defense industry with help from North Korea and China, and reinforce the 20% of Ukraine it holds. And it reinvigorated a stalled offensive to take more territory and inflict more misery on Ukraine’s long-suffering civilian population.
Russian commanders found themselves with all the advantages of a ceasefire without the bother of having to cease fire.
“NATO allies have not delivered what they promised,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg admitted ruefully during a visit to Kyiv at the end of April. “And this has had serious consequences on the battlefield.”
“The lack of ammunition has enabled the Russians to push forward along the front line. Lack of air defense has made it possible for more Russian missiles to hit their targets, and then lack of deep-strike capabilities has made it possible for the Russians to concentrate more forces,” Stoltenberg said.
And as a result, Putin is feeling cocky and more confident than ever that his ultimate goal is within reach.
“He believes that he will walk through the ruins, and he will try to launch his counteroffensive,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
“I believe that Russia will take as much of that country as they can get,” Gen. Christopher Cavoli, America’s top European and supreme NATO commander, told Congress last month. “This could, in the worst case, put Russian soldiers throughout Ukraine, which would put them on many more NATO country borders than they are currently.”
Zelensky can’t afford to despair, even as the morale of his battle-weary troops began to flag under the unrelenting “meat-grinder” assaults of waves of Russian troops and Russian “glide bombs” that systematically destroyed Ukrainian power stations and civilian infrastructure with impunity.
“You can imagine what our soldiers feel when they simply have nothing to respond to enemy fire. The 1-to-10 ratio of artillery in our country to that of the Russian army inspires Putin to fight on,” Zelensky said.
“[The pause] allowed Russian warplanes to basically dip into Russia’s almost limitless stock of one-ton, two-ton big bombs that were built ages ago, but that they can strap wings to and guidance systems and obliterate Ukrainian fortifications,” Marc Santora, a New York Times correspondent who has been reporting from Ukraine since the beginning of the war, said on a recent podcast.
“The first time I heard these things, it shocked me. We were outside Avdiivka, maybe 2 miles away. And you just heard this thunder. And Russia was dropping at the peak of the battle for Avdiivka something like 250 of these in 48 hours,” he added.
As soon as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) indicated he would defy hard-right members of his party by allowing a $61 billion aid package to be put to a vote, the Pentagon scrambled to be ready to ship an initial $1 billion worth of arms, including air-defense interceptors, artillery shells, armored fighting vehicles, and anti-tank weapons, many of which had been prepositioned in Europe just waiting for the green light.
The one thing missing from the list was the longer-range version of the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS.
It turned out the Biden administration had secretly approved the transfer of the missiles in February, and Ukraine began using them in March to hit behind Russian lines.
But Ukraine still lacks the best weapon to take down the 12-mile-long bridge over the Kerch Strait that Russia built to supply its forces in occupied Crimea, according to Can Kasapoglu, an analyst at the Hudson Institute.
And that would be the German Taurus missile, which has an advanced fuse configuration and sensors to optimize penetration of a hard target and which German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been refusing to provide.
“If Berlin wishes to arm Ukraine for victory, it should consider supplying Kyiv with the Taurus missiles it needs,” Kasapoglu wrote.
“I would caution anyone in believing that one type of system is going to be a silver bullet. It’s going to be a combination of a number of systems,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said after a meeting of the 50-plus nations supporting Ukraine. “It’s going to be dependent upon whether or not Ukraine can effectively employ these systems and sustain those systems, and whether or not Ukraine can mobilize an adequate number of troops to replenish its ranks.”
That, perhaps, is Ukraine’s biggest challenge: rebuilding its army, depleted and, in some cases, demoralized by more than two years of unrelenting combat.
Zelensky recently reluctantly signed a law lowering the age of conscription from 27 to 25, which will allow for a major expansion of the Ukrainian army, but it also creates a need for U.S. and European allies to increase the capacity to train raw recruits greatly.
“Under existing programs, only tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are trained every year at sites across Europe. This might seem like a lot, but it is not enough,” argued Luke Coffey, senior fellow at Hudson. “It is likely that hundreds of thousands of new Ukrainian soldiers will need basic training over the coming years.”
“Years” is the operative word here, in that if Ukraine can prevail, defined as reaching a negotiated settlement on terms favorable to Kyiv, it won’t be this year and likely not next year, either.
Austin told the House Armed Services Committee that for now, Ukraine’s military needs to focus on three “achievable” goals — maintaining access to a Black Sea shipping corridor to export grain, repulsing Russian advances in the north and east, where much of Ukraine’s industry is based, and keeping the pressure on Russian-occupied Crimea.
“Our goal is to see a democratic, independent, and sovereign Ukraine that has the capability to defend itself and deter aggression going forward,” Austin told reporters at the Pentagon in announcing a second commitment of $6 billion in future weapons. “You see us working towards that end with not only the capability that we’re providing Ukraine in the current battle but the kinds of things helping Ukraine build for the future.”
“Ukraine is still in the fight and still showing incredible skill, courage, and resilience,” Austin said. “That’s quite remarkable, and it’s holding that ground even in the face of a question as to whether or not we were going to continue to support them. That question is off the table now, and that has reassured the Ukrainians, but also, it’s reassured our allies and partners around the globe.”
Well, not quite off the table.
There remains a real prospect the $61 billion lifeline may be the last from the United States.
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Former President Donald Trump has made it clear that, if reelected, he favors cutting off further U.S. assistance, which could force Ukraine to capitulate to Putin’s demands.
That also ensures Putin will not have any incentive to give up before the results of the November election are known.