What the new aid really means for Ukraine and Putin

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The writer is the author of ‘Commando: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine’.

The intelligence assessments had to be dire to persuade Mike Johnson to risk his position as Speaker of the House and finally push through a bill providing essential support to Ukraine. Chronic shortages of ammunition and air defenses had led to limited but potentially significant Russian advances and Ukrainian cities taking a beating. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Ukraine could lose the war.

Once President Joe Biden signed the bill into law, the U.S. military began rapidly shipping desperately needed materiel to the front lines. The goal is to leave Russia with as little time as possible to make the most of its current superiority before it begins to face further resistance. The congressional votes were a major morale boost for kyiv, which now hopes a virtuous circle of events will restore its fortunes on the battlefield.

Manpower problems, which remain chronic, should be alleviated as new recruits do not face the prospect of being sent to fight with insufficient ammunition. Existing stocks in Ukraine can be released immediately: there is no longer a need to scrape them out for fear that they will never be replaced. It will give a boost to European countries to go ahead with their war donations. Rishi Sunak, the UK prime minister, made his own announcement during a visit to Warsaw about a new £500 million package, as a range of projects to bring additional munitions, Patriot air defense systems and F-planes progress. 16 to Ukraine.

In the first instance, this is more likely to slow down the current Russian offensive rather than reverse it. Even when there were hopes that American aid would arrive earlier in the year, 2024 was still expected to be a period in which Ukraine would hold ground rather than liberate its occupied territory. Ukrainian forces would absorb any blow the Russians could throw at them, while solving their personnel problems and ensuring their own lines could hold out. Zelenskyy, his government and military leaders have spent much of this year debating how to mobilize more men, even as those already committed are suffering exhaustion and exhaustion, and building fortifications to slow anticipated Russian offensives.

It will take time to recover from the difficult first months of this year, and even longer before Ukraine begins to fully benefit from new supplies of equipment and increased European and American production of artillery shells. New units need to be trained and there are still outstanding command issues from last year’s disappointing counteroffensive, particularly about how to coordinate large-scale operations. Although the Ukrainian military does not want to completely give up the initiative and wants the Russians to start worrying about their own positions instead of focusing on how best to attack Ukraine’s, it will be some time before they have the necessary strength. begin to liberate substantial amounts of territory.

Last year’s counteroffensive was announced well in advance, and Russia was not surprised by either its direction or its timing. Ukrainian forces suffered the consequences. kyiv could face pressure to show major military gains in time for the November US elections to help justify assistance, but it dare not let its next big effort end with meager results. He still needs to save resources because he cannot be sure of future levels of support, especially if Donald Trump wins the presidency. Aside from his legal problems, one explanation for Trump remaining relatively silent while Congress agreed to new support is that he couldn’t accuse Biden of wasting money in Ukraine if he weren’t there to waste it.

For now, the best way for Ukraine to continue the fight against Russia is to continue the type of attacks it has been carrying out regularly lately. These have used long-range drones against oil refineries and other targets with certain strategic value in Russia. Ukraine will not be able to use the long-range ATACMS missiles, nor the additional Storm Shadow cruise missiles promised by Sunak in Warsaw this week, to attack targets in Russia proper. However, there are many military targets available in occupied Ukrainian territory, including Crimea.

While there are no easy ways to bring Russia to its knees, Russian vulnerabilities can be exposed. Vladimir Putin will find it more difficult to see how he can bring the war to an early conclusion, which was undoubtedly his hope before the congressional vote. He might have expected that the loss of a major city like Kharkiv would push Ukraine into a downward spiral. Now we return to the prospect of an endless war. It is true that Putin has prepared for this. But the magnitude of recent Russian losses against limited gains and the embarrassment of failing to stop Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory mean he still lacks an obvious route to victory.

Even if Trump wins the presidential election in November, that does not guarantee Putin a satisfactory result. Trump will want to push his peace plan but, from what has been reported, Putin will find the details as unacceptable as Zelenskyy will. Having publicly boasted for the past six months that Russia had taken the lead in the war, Putin must now contemplate the possibility that he may once again tilt toward Ukraine.