- The US gives Ukraine a long-awaited boost, but it may have come too late
- Ukrainians argue that greater involvement of partners will now be needed to defeat Russia
- Is it too late for Ukraine to defeat the enemy?
The US gives Ukraine a long-awaited boost, but it may have come too late
After much wrangling and disagreement, the United States House of Representatives approved almost €61 billion in aid for Ukraine on Saturday. The United States of America approved an aid package for Ukraine with an overwhelming approval of USD 200 million.
President Joe Biden signed the bill into law on Wednesday, and shortly afterward, the Pentagon announced that around USD 1 billion had already gone to Ukraine. A military aid package worth USD 1.5 billion has also reached Ukraine. It includes ammunition for air defense and artillery systems.
This aid will reach Ukraine in good time. Previous US assistance has already expired, and the Stinger missiles, other air defense munitions, 155-millimeter grenades, Javelin anti-tank missiles, and combat vehicles that are now planned to be delivered to Ukraine will enable it to repel the intensifying enemy attacks[1].
"I have just signed into law the National Security Package, which was passed by the House of Representatives this weekend and approved by the Senate yesterday. It will make America safer, it will make the world safer, and it will make America continue to lead the world, and everybody knows it. It will give America's partners the vital support they need to defend themselves against threats to their sovereignty and the lives and freedom of their citizens," said US President Biden in signing the order.
But not everyone is so optimistic. The prevailing view is that this support will reach Ukraine far too late for it to be able to fend off the enemy's planned near-term attacks and to preserve the territory it now controls. There is also a growing body of opinion that military aid packages are no longer sufficient for Kyiv at all and that victory over Russia may require direct Western involvement in the conflict.
Ukrainians argue that greater involvement of partners will now be needed to defeat Russia
Following the news of the US agreement to provide Ukraine with the long-discussed and debated support, the US leader was personally thanked by the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky himself. Yegor Chernyev, Deputy Chairman of the National Security Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament, stressed that this arms package is a real lifeline for the army.
However, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has a more moderate rhetoric, arguing that US aid will not be enough to win the war.
"A single package will not stop the Russians. Only a united front of Ukraine as a whole and all its partners will stop the Russians", he said.
Is this a thinly disguised call for the West to finally get directly involved in the war in Ukraine? After all, such discussions have indeed been taking place in recent months, going back to statements by French President Emmanuel Macron about the possible involvement of NATO troops in the conflict.
However, Kuleba is not only asking for more active help. He is also heaping plenty of criticism on the West:
"When I see what Russia has managed to achieve in two years in building up its defense industrial base and what the West has achieved, I start to think that there is something wrong with the West. The West needs to realize that the time for peace in Europe is over."
According to the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Ukraine's allied military industrial production will not reach its peak before the end of 2024.
As for the possible course of the war in Ukraine or even its end, Kuleba said that he could not predict how long it would last, but he believed that at the end of the war, there would be only one side, and that would be Ukraine.
However, the outlook for Ukraine is rather gloomy so far. War experts and observers are currently focused on eastern Ukraine, where the situation could soon become extremely tense.
The Russian army's offensive continues, and Khasiv Yar, a town in the Donetsk region 17 km west of Bakhmut, could become a real center of hostilities in the coming days.
Ukraine is believed to want to hold on at all costs to the town, which military experts say is the cornerstone of the country's defense and plans in the Donetsk region.
Otherwise, its capture could allow Russian troops to shell nearby Kostantynivka, Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk[2].
Is it too late for Ukraine to defeat the enemy?
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says he believes that "it is not too late for Ukraine to defeat" Russia if its allies keep all their promises to provide more weapons:
"In recent months, NATO allies have not provided the support we promised. But it is not too late to defeat Ukraine because more support is on the way."
However, a senior US official, who wished to remain anonymous, told the American media that the new security assistance provided by the United States and other countries might help Ukraine regain the initiative on the battlefield. However, it would take time, and an effective offensive by the Ukrainians was unlikely to take place in the near future.
Although the United States is one of the main providers of military aid to Ukraine, the pace of aid has been slow: warring members of Congress have been unable to agree on new aid for nearly a year and a half. At the same time, the war in Ukraine is not slowing down, with civilian and military casualties and the rapid depletion of ammunition and military equipment.
And Russia has not stopped attacking: even US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan recently said that "it is certainly possible that Russia could achieve additional tactical victories in the coming weeks".
Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russian analyst at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), says that Ukraine lost the initiative in the war as early as October 2023 due to a lack of equipment. Since then, Ukraine has lost 583 square kilometers of territory, and Russia has had time to prepare for offensive operations expected in late spring or early summer.
The possibility of a new and widespread Russian offensive in Ukraine is worrying, but there is no time to relax. As Max Bergman, Director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia Programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says, Ukraine needs to use 2024 to rebuild its forces for a long war.
"Europe's goal should be to enable itself to potentially fill the future gap left by the United States if it does not accept another supplementary agreement," he says.
But even these European reserves are still not enough to do more than help Ukraine maintain its defense fortifications.
The unpredictability of the aid has been a headache for Ukraine from the start: at first, there was skepticism about Ukraine's chances of standing up to Russia, then it became a tool for political wrangling, and last summer, Western governments were also keen to see what would happen to Ukraine's much-vaunted counter-attack[3].
"Everybody wants to support the winner; it's part of human nature," said Oleksiy Reznikov, now Ukraine's former defense minister.
Nowadays, the West speaks less and less about such a certain and guaranteed Ukrainian victory, which could be a sign of alarm not only for Ukraine but also for Europe as a whole, whose direct involvement in the conflict is becoming increasingly real.
