Kyiv, Ukraine CNN —
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived in Kiev early Monday, as the impending US presidential election determines the fate of US aid to Ukraine and Russia continues to make small but steady advances on the battlefield.
While in Kiev, Secretary Austin will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov to discuss Ukraine’s arms needs and how the United States can continue to support the country’s military over the next year. Secretary Austin told a small group of reporters accompanying him to Kiev. on Sunday night.
A senior defense official said the secretary’s visit would also be an opportunity for him to “step back” and look at the “arc” of U.S.-Ukrainian relations over the past two-and-a-half years of war.
However, it won’t be a victory lap. Ukrainians are in a "very difficult” situation with Russians heading into winter, the official noted.
It’s the tough Western sanctions imposed on Russia’s economy in response to the Russian invasion, the billions of dollars worth of military equipment the United States has flooded into Ukraine, and the multinational coalition the Biden administration has assembled to help since the early days of the war. Despite this. Ukrainian forces repulsed the Russian advance.
A loud explosion was heard in the Ukrainian capital Kiev early Monday local time, according to a local CNN producer, as the country still faces daily shelling more than two-and-a-half years into a brutal war with Moscow. It clearly tells the story. City authorities announced that air defense systems had been activated.
Austin, and the broader Biden administration, consider multilateral coalitions to be a key aspect of his accomplishments as secretary of defense, and in particular the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which Austin called for coordination two months after the start of the war. It is a coalition of 57 countries and the European Union that was first convened. Immediate military aid to Ukraine.
“It’s absolutely amazing that Ukraine has been able to accomplish what it has done,” Austin told reporters. “Of course, we’ve been able to do that because we’ve been supporting them from the beginning, and we’ve mobilized about 50 countries to join in that support.”
U.S. officials hope the coalition will survive, but Donald Trump’s likely victory has thrown much of that into question. Last month, the former president declined to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war, describing Zelenskiy as a “salesman” who “should never have started the war.”
A senior Pentagon official said the Pentagon is still planning as if assistance would continue, and Austin said Friday: “We are building long-term capabilities for Ukraine every day.” .
“None of us are ignorant of the political uncertainty in the United States, or for that matter in Ukraine,” the defense official said.
U.S. officials also hope to maintain bipartisan support for Ukraine in Congress. But that doesn’t mean it’s inevitable. There has already been one major fight on Capitol Hill this year over the approval of additional funding for Ukraine. The controversy is fueled by the far-right Republican Party, which opposes aid to Ukraine, and whose influence will only grow under a potential Trump presidency. management.
Austin arrived Monday in a country still engaged in a fierce battle for its survival. President Zelenskiy has ruled out ceding any territory to Russia and continues to lobby for Ukraine’s integration into NATO as the best path to victory.
Referring to the first point of his “victory plan” that he presented to the United States, Europe, and NATO, Zelenskiy said, “The first point is now an invitation to NATO.”
Paradoxically, however, as long as Ukraine remains at war, NATO is unlikely to admit Ukraine.
Austin said Sunday that Ukraine had prevented Russian President Vladimir Putin from achieving “single strategic objective” during the war. But he did not articulate a Western vision of how Ukraine could win decisively.
A senior North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) official said last week that Russian forces continue to occupy Ukrainian territory, outnumber Ukrainian forces 3 to 1 on the battlefield and maintain a “significant” advantage in personnel and munitions. Ta. Meanwhile, Iran sent three ballistic missiles to Russia this year, North Korea provided 11,000 ammunition containers and appears to be preparing to send troops to fight for Russia in Ukraine. China also remains a “key enabler” of Russia’s war effort, a senior NATO official said.
Indeed, the war has taken a heavy toll on Russia, with more than 1,250 casualties per day in September, the highest number since the war began, officials said. But the Russian government is mobilizing 30,000 new troops per month and producing more than 3 million munitions annually, a pace that is likely to continue for at least “the next few years,” the official said. added.
Ukraine has more sophisticated weapons thanks to Western powers, which could give it a strategic advantage, defense officials said. “In terms of capabilities, Ukraine is in a much stronger position this year than it was a year ago,” the official said. The flow of ammunition donations is also now “more stable” and “more predictable,” the official added.
However, Russia maintains an advantage in terms of vast amounts of personnel and munitions. And the United States is not yet ready to allow Ukraine to use U.S.-provided long-range missiles to strike deep into Russia, as Mr. Zelenskiy has repeatedly called for.
Still, Austin said he was confident the U.S. and its allies would continue to step up their support for Ukraine next year, no matter who is in power.
“I think our allies and partners will continue to stand up to this,” he said Sunday night. “And we have invested in things that are coming soon in terms of additional systems like NASAMS (surface-to-air missiles). We made these investments a year and a half, two years ago, and some of them We’re going to start seeing that come to fruition here very soon.”
