With Ukraine’s military steadily losing ground to Russia’s and allies falling short of fully supporting Ukraine’s latest plan to end the conflict, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin on Monday announced support for the war effort. He made an unannounced visit to Kiev in order to strengthen the
Austin’s visit to Ukraine will be his third since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, when President Biden met with allied leaders in Germany to rally support for Ukraine. The fate of future American military aid is also at stake. In this country, the fate of the US presidential election in two weeks is at stake.
Mr. Austin, who arrived by train from Poland, met with President Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukrainian military leaders to discuss how to continue to support Ukraine’s military operations against growing challenges.
In his meeting with Zelenskiy, Austin announced that the Pentagon would send $400 million in new weapons to Ukraine, including ammunition for the HIMARS rocket system, additional ammunition, armored vehicles, and anti-tank weapons.
In recent days, Russian forces have recaptured much of the territory captured by Ukraine in Russia’s western Kursk region. Russian forces are also continuing to make slow, hard advances in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, inflicting staggering casualties. And the Russian government has ramped up drone attacks across Ukraine.
“We continue to support Ukraine and its efforts to protect its sovereign territory,” Austin told reporters traveling with him to the Ukrainian capital Kiev. The United States has provided more than $61 billion in security aid to Ukraine since the war began.
Austin also said U.S. officials will help Ukraine train and equip the new force it is building. Reports have emerged that many Ukrainian military units fighting in southern Donetsk and other front-line areas are understaffed.
“They’re working hard to get more people involved,” Austin told reporters. “They have to train those people. They have to restore combat strength.”
Away from the battlefield, Ukraine also faces headwinds.
Zelenskiy told EU leaders in Brussels last week that his country desperately needed support for a plan to end the war, which he insisted could happen as early as next year.
A key point in Mr. Zelenskiy’s so-called victory plan is Ukraine’s entry into the NATO military alliance, a proposal that U.S. officials have balked at for fear of dragging the United States directly into war.
Zelenskiy’s strategy also calls for lifting restrictions on Kiev’s use of Western-provided missiles to attack ammunition depots and other military facilities deep in Russia, and for Ukraine to identify and attack Russian targets. They want the West to share more of the satellite data they have available to them.
The Biden administration has repeatedly rejected such moves. Biden is wary of provoking retaliation against U.S. interests. American intelligence has concluded that if the United States and its allies allow Ukraine to fire long-range missiles at Russia, Russia is likely to retaliate more forcefully. And Austin said Ukraine already produces large quantities of its own powerful attack drones that can hit targets much deeper inside Russia than Western missiles.
Much of Mr. Austin’s day in the Ukrainian capital was expected to be filled with meetings to discuss battlefield updates and strategy for the coming months. These include Ukraine’s desperate need to strengthen its air defenses to protect against Russian missile and glide bomb attacks aimed at destroying Ukraine. As winter approaches, the power grid changes.
Additionally, Russia has significantly stepped up its drone attacks against targets across Ukraine. The number of attacks rose from 350 in July to 750 in August and 1,500 in September, two Western officials said.
The Ukrainian military attack on Kursk in August caught Russian commanders as well as American officials by surprise. In addition to boosting military and national morale, the invasion had two main objectives. One is to have the Kremlin divert soldiers from other parts of the front line to respond to the attack, thereby relieving pressure on the Ukrainian military, and the other is to seize territory that Moscow aims to retake. , could force them to come to the negotiating table.
The first goal appears to have failed so far, as the Kremlin ramps up attacks on eastern Ukraine, bringing in reserves primarily from within Russia, but Kiev officials say Russia is It is sticking to the second goal as part of its plan to draw it into peace negotiations. So far, that doesn’t work either.
Ukraine still holds about 300 square miles of territory in Kursk, down from about 400 square miles at its peak, but Russian forces have launched air and ground attacks after a slow and disjointed start. It is being strengthened. The attack has also depleted Ukraine’s human and material resources, which are desperately needed elsewhere on the Eastern and Southern Fronts to fend off unabated Russian aggression.
American and other Western analysts say Moscow appears undaunted by staggering troop losses to achieve such modest gains.
September was the bloodiest month of the war for Russian troops in Ukraine, U.S. officials said, with a costly offensive in the east taking Russian troops to more than 600,000 casualties since the war began.
U.S. officials described the high number of Russian casualties as an intense war of attrition, with each side seeking to exhaust the other by inflicting maximum losses, hoping to break the enemy’s capabilities and will to continue. It is said that this is due to the war that took place.
This is a style of warfare that puts the Russians through a meat grinder, and commanders seem intent on sending thousands of infantrymen to their deaths.
According to U.S. estimates, Russian casualties in the war have so far reached 615,000 people, including 115,000 Russians killed and 500,000 injured. U.S. and British military analysts estimate that the average number of Russian casualties in September was more than 1,200 per day, slightly higher than the highest daily death toll recorded in May.
Ukrainian officials have zealously guarded their own casualty numbers, even against Americans, but one American official said Ukraine suffered just over half of Russia’s casualties, or 57,500 dead. It is estimated that more than 250,000 people were injured.
These losses are a huge blow to Ukraine in a war that has now been going on for more than two and a half years with no clear end in sight.
David A. Deptula, a retired U.S. Air Force general and director of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Washington, who visited Ukraine this year, said: “Ukrainians are tired of the fighting, and the mounting casualties are creating anxiety.” he said. last week. “But the Ukrainians can win with the right level of support and the right operational level planning.”
The level of support in the United States will likely depend on who wins the White House in November.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for the White House, reiterated her support for Ukraine after meeting with Zelenskiy in Washington just last month.
Meanwhile, former President Donald J. Trump gave a series of speeches mocking Mr. Zelensky, misrepresenting facts about the war, repeating Kremlin talking points and saying that Ukraine was already essentially lost.
Mr. Austin expressed confidence that no matter who wins the election, Congressional Democrats and Republicans will approve continued security assistance to Ukraine.
“We’ve seen bipartisan support for Ukraine over the past two and a half years, and we fully expected that good bipartisan support from Congress would continue,” he told reporters. .
