BRIEF NUMBERED REPORT — Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, the United States has allocated more than $75 billion in military, economic and humanitarian support to kyiv, in what amounts to the largest series of US aid programs to a European country since the days of Harry Truman’s Marshall Plan.
“We gave from the West the best kind of preparation that we could give to this force,” said former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, General. Wesley Clark. “[But] Ultimately, the most important factor is likely to be Ukraine’s determination to regain its territory. It is the will to fight, it is the courage of soldiers at all levels.
Speaking during a Atlantic Council Briefing Last week, Clark then raised concerns about the relative readiness of Ukrainian commanders “at every level, and especially, soldiers at the bottom.”
“Can they respond effectively under fire with their own artillery? Can they repel a Russian airstrike against their unit while it is on the move? he asked.
“Why am I worried? Because you always have to put yourself in an enemy commander’s mind about this, and what would you do? ” he added. “This war is unlike any previous war the United States has seen and certainly anything that the Russians have seen different in this operational security is extremely difficult in this environment. There are drones, there are satellites, there is electronic information, there are all kinds of reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance.
If successful, the Ukrainian counteroffensive will nonetheless be “drudgery” and “gnawing”, Clark said. [It would] “to be wonderful if the Russian forces collapse.” [It would] be wonderful if it’s over in three weeks. Don’t count on it. Don’t listen to these people building these expectations, it’s really strategically dangerous for us.
But as spring approaches summer, and with western– equipped with tanks and armored vehicles bound for the battlefield, President Volodymyr Zelensky does not seem in a hurry to rush his forces eastward. “With what we have, we can move forward,” Zelensky said in a interview earlier this month. “But we are going to lose a lot of people… So we have to wait. We need more time.
“We are still expecting certain things,” added Zelensky, who wrapped up talks at the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Japan this weekend in a bid to boost support for Ukraine.
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During this same summit, President Joe Biden not only announcement another military aid package, this one to the tune of $375 million, but he also said the United States would support the training of Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets, while allowing European countries to transfer advanced aircraft to Kiev. The move quickly prompted Russia to warn of “enormous risks” if the planes were indeed delivered, with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko adding that such transfers show that Western countries are “buying into a scenario of ‘escalation”. Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov also noted that any Ukrainian attack on occupied Crimea would be considered an attack on Russia itself.
And yet, Ukraine’s growing arsenal of weapons already possesses the kind of range that could prove problematic for Russian defenses. During the weekend, reports of the British provided Shadow Storm missiles – with a range of 155 miles – slammed into the Russian port city of Berdyansk. These weapons reinforce Ukraine’s use of the High Mobility Medium-Range Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) that it began using last summer, and whose software has more recently been subject to Russian jamming.
The new capacity is widely believed to boost the power of Ukraine’s upcoming load, but there is “no counting the chickens” before they “hatch”, Clark warned.
“In the real world, there is no indication that Putin is ever willing to abandon his maximalist goals in Ukraine and concede defeat,” said Jennifer Cafarella, director of strategic initiatives at the Institute for the Study of War. (ISW). .
Russia has not yet called in additional troops and used its hypersonic launcher Kinzhal missile to bombard kyiv (despite employing US-built Patriot missile defense systems), and is heavily fortified along several parts of the 900-mile front.
Ukraine ultimately hopes, Clark said, to “drive out Russian forces by pushing into Crimea, dislocating Russian logistics in the rear, then launching a second offensive to go through Lugansk and Donetsk, and get it all back up.”
“It will not be a blitzkrieg that will end in two weeks,” he added. “Logistics is a priority. And we know that the United States and the West have failed to resolve the logistical problems facing this plethora of equipment arriving.
Courtney Kealy contributed to this report.
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