Kyiv, Ukraine. After almost 30 months of war with russiaUkraine’s difficulties on the battlefield are increasing even as vital US support is increasingly at the mercy of shifting political winds.
One semester delay in military assistance of the United States, the largest single contributor to Ukraine, opened the door for Kremlin forces push on the front line. Ukrainian troops are now fighting to slow the slow but gradual advances of the larger and better-equipped Russian army.
“The next two or three months will probably be the most difficult this year for Ukraine,” military analyst Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment said in a recent podcast.
Lurking in the background is another persistent concern for Ukraine: how long will the Western political and military support critical to its fight last?
On Monday, the former president donald trump elected Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate for the Republican nomination in the US elections in November, and Vance wants the United States to deal with its own problems, not necessarily a war thousands of miles away on a different continent, although he has said that Putin was wrong to invade.
That view fits with Trump’s own position. Trump has stated that, if elected, he would end the conflict before Inauguration Day in January. He has refused to say how.
Meanwhile, Hungary’s pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, recently enraged other EU leaders holding dishonest meetings with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The biggest war in Europe since World War II has already cost tens of thousands of lives on both sides, including thousands of civilians. There are no signs of this ending anytime soon.
And Putin wants to prolong the war in hopes of undermining Western willingness to send billions more dollars to kyiv.
Here’s a look at Ukraine’s main challenges:
Russia owns 18% of Ukrainian territory, after defensive forces expelled it from half the area it seized following its large-scale invasion in February 2022, the Council on Foreign Relations, a US think tank, said in May. . In 2014, Russia took over Ukraine. Crimea.
Russia has not achieved a major battlefield victory since taking the eastern fortress of Avdiivka in February. But his forces are now pressing into the border regions: Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine, Donetsk in the east and Zaporizhzhia in the south.
To buy time, Ukraine has employed an elastic defense strategy by giving up some territory to wear down Russian troops until Western supplies reach the brigades. But, analysts warn, Russia will undoubtedly win a long war of attrition unless Ukraine can strike using an element of surprise.
Russia claimed on Sunday that its forces had taken control of the Donetsk village of Urozhaine, but Ukrainian officials said fighting was still taking place there. Moscow’s army aims to take the nearby strategic hilltop town of Chasiv Yar, which could allow it to push further into Donetsk.
Ukrainian forces are largely slowing the Russian advance around the northeastern city of Kharkiv, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank. Kremlin troops have been trying to get within artillery range of the city and create a buffer zone in the region to prevent cross-border Ukrainian attacks.
Meanwhile, Russia is firing missiles into rear areas, hitting civilian infrastructure. Last week he made a massive airstrike that killed 31 civilians and hit Ukraine The largest children’s hospital in Kyiv.
Paralyzing Ukraine’s electricity supply has been a key target of relentless Russian attacks with long-range missiles and drones.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the bombing has destroyed 80% of Ukraine’s thermal energy and a third of its hydroelectric power.
Ukraine is likely to have a tough winter ahead, analysts say.
Ukraine is such a large country that massive air defenses would be needed to protect everything. The country needs 25 patriots. air defense systems fully defend its airspace, Zelenskyy said Monday.
New ammunition deliveries to Ukraine are drip to units along the line of contact, reducing kyiv’s large disadvantage in artillery shells and allowing it to begin stabilizing the front line.
But it will take time for kyiv’s army to fully replenish its depleted stocks. Ukraine will not be able to mount a counteroffensive until the end of this year at the earliest, military analysts estimate.
Russia, meanwhile, is spending record amounts of defense money to finance their exhausting war of attrition.
Russia’s preferred tactic is to destroy cities and towns, rendering them uninhabitable and denying the Ukrainians defensive cover. Powerful gliding bombs flatten buildings. Then the Russian infantry enters.
Ukraine was slow to build defensive lines, but its fortifications have improved in recent months, according to analyst reports.
The Russian military has made progressive gains at points in the east and south along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, but it has not made any significant gains recently and its advances have been costly, Ukrainian officials say.
Ukraine adopted a expanded military recruitment law which aimed to replenish their depleted and exhausted forces.
Zelenskyy said Monday that the campaign is going well, although the country does not have enough training camps for the new troops. In addition, 14 brigades have not yet received the promised Western weapons.
NATO countries have measures taken this month to ensure that Ukraine continues to receive long-term security aid and military training.
Alliance leaders attended a summit in Washington last week. signed an agreement send more Stinger missiles, a portable surface-to-air defense system.
Ukraine is also preparing to receive the first F-16 fighter jets donated by European countries.
Still, Zelenskyy is frustrated. He says Ukraine cannot win the war unless the United States removes its limits on using its weapons to attack military targets on Russian soil.
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Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal.
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