As Russia pushes forward, Ukrainian soldiers say U.S. aid delays have left them exposed

KYIV, Ukraine — On Ukraine’s front lines, soldiers have their eyes on the enemy slowly advancing across the country’s muddy fields — and on Washington, where an ally’s inaction is doing as much to dent their morale.

“The situation on the battlefield is getting worse every week,” one soldier serving in the southern Zaporizhzhia region told NBC News.

Russia’s military has Ukraine on the defensive, taking advantage of an army that is vulnerable after nearly two years of war: short of soldiers, dealing with leadership upheaval and critically low on ammunition. New military aid remains stalled in Congress, and a shortage of supplies has contributed to the surrender of a key eastern city and eroded morale among units that find themselves outmanned and outgunned.

NBC News spoke to five soldiers across the war’s more than 600 miles of front lines, as well as military analysts, who offered a bleak assessment of Ukraine’s prospects with support from its Western backers in doubt.

Military mobility of Ukrainian soldiers in the direction of Avdiivka (Diego Herrera Carcedo / Anadolu via Getty Images)

The soldier in the south, a drone operator, said that if he spots Russian movement in his area, Ukrainian artillery units fire a few rounds in response — enough to frighten but not destroy them.

Facing a shortage of rounds, he said they try to substitute artillery fire with small handmade bombs strapped to the drones that they then drop on the Russians.

“It works well sometimes, but their power and range are very limited,” added the private, who like others in this story requested anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly. “It feels that if something doesn’t change completely in the next couple weeks, we are f—ed up here.”

Aid delays and ammo shortages

The U.S. has provided more than $47 billion in military support to Ukraine since the war began, but a new package of aid has been in congressional limbo for months.

There was some relief for Kyiv last week as the Senate finally passed the aid package. But it will face a major hurdle in the House, where hard-line Republicans aligned with former President Donald Trump have voiced strong opposition to the legislation.

That could leave Ukraine scrambling to fill in gaps for months before the legislation goes to President Joe Biden’s desk — if that happens at all.

It’s difficult to predict exactly what would happen on the battlefield if the U.S. halts its assistance completely, but it “would certainly put him [Putin] in a good position to reach his goals,” a European official told NBC News.

New supplies of ammunition are “really critical” for “the ability of the Ukrainian forces to be able to sustain this effort in the coming months,” the official said.

Western countries are working with Ukraine’s defense industry to enable Kyiv to produce its own ammunition, but Kyiv remains reliant on the U.S. and other countries in particular for artillery shells and air-defense munitions, the European official said.

Russia Continues Long-Running Assault On Avdiivka Area (Libkos / Getty Images)

Those needs are already being felt.

“Ammunition stalling greatly impacts us on the battlefield,” said U.S. Army veteran Miro Popovich, a combat volunteer fighting in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region. Popovich, 34, said his unit was caught in heavy artillery fire a few weeks ago that lasted for two hours, but Ukrainian forces were unable to counter.

He suspects a shortage of ammunition was to blame. “We got out alive, but it left a little frustration that the enemy is able to do things like that unpunished,” Popovich said.

“It would have been great if American politicians stopped using Ukraine in pre-election games and just helped us to stop this great evil,” he added.

The most acute need right now is for artillery rounds, said Dara Massicot, a senior fellow with the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, but rationing is now occurring across many ammunition categories like tank rounds and rockets.

Another soldier serving in the infantry in the eastern Donbas region said that Ukrainian forces were aware of their heavy reliance on Western supplies and the dire future they faced with that support in doubt.

“Imagine a person injured in a car crash,” said the private, who goes by the call sign “Tatarin.”

“You have an option of either helping this person or wait a little until the medics arrive, and every minute for this person is their chance of survival,” he said. “It’s the same here. You can think about it for another week or two, but it all costs the lives of the soldiers on the front lines.”

The battle for Avdiivka — and beyond

The struggle Ukraine is facing has been evident in the fight for Avdiivka, a small eastern city that became the main flashpoint of the war over the winter.

The two sides fought over the battered town for months, but Russian forces seized it over the weekend. Avdiivka’s fall hands Putin a high-profile victory amid faltering Western support and ahead of his re-election next month. It also expands Russia’s control over Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, where Avdiivka serves as a gateway to the main city of Donetsk.

Last week, Kyiv appeared determined to keep fighting in the city, with street-to-street battles ongoing and one of its best-trained and battle-hardened units brought in as reinforcements. But on Saturday, the country’s new commander-in-chief, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said he was pulling his troops out to avoid being encircled and to “preserve the life and health of military personnel.”

Artillery sergeant Andriy was in Avdiivka since the fighting there intensified in October.

Like others NBC News spoke with, he said ahead of the withdrawal that Ukraine was running low on soldiers and that those it did have were exhausted and lacking supplies. “We have nearly no ammunition,” said Andriy, who was also not authorized to speak publicly.

Artillery has been crucial throughout the war, but some soldiers told NBC News they now faced restrictions limiting the duration and quality of fire, leaving their defensive positions vulnerable and severely outgunned by Russian units lacking neither supplies nor soldiers.

Military mobility of Ukrainian soldiers in Donetsk Oblast (Diego Herrera Carcedo / Anadolu via Getty Images)

The troops’ daily rations have been severely reduced, Andriy said, and instead of the usual 90 rounds a day or so, they often get a third of that. “We have had cases of being given just 10 for 24 hours,” he said. “How can you fight with 10 rounds?” That is in contrast to the counteroffensive he took part in in the south last summer, in which he said there were no such restrictions.

The delays in aid mean he couldn’t do his job of covering the infantry, Andriy said.

If that aid is stalled for another couple of weeks or even months, it’s inevitable the Russians will break through Ukraine’s defenses across the front lines, Oleksandr, a sergeant with Ukraine’s military intelligence who did not want his last name disclosed because of the sensitivity of his role, told NBC News.

“They will tear through the line of defense. It has already started moving — not to our advantage, unfortunately,” Oleksandr, 30, added. “There are simply no people and not enough weapons.”

The U.S. assessment of the situation is similarly bleak. “Ukraine’s military was forced to withdraw from Avdiivka after Ukrainian soldiers had to ration ammunition due to dwindling supplies as a result of congressional inaction, resulting in Russia’s first notable gains in months,” Biden said in a phone call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday.

Russia is already touting the surrender of Avdiivka as a big win and what it said was a chaotic retreat, with its forces now looking to push further forward in the east.

The situation is “dire” beyond Avdiivka, Massicot said.

“If this aid does not resume quickly, Ukraine’s positions are in jeopardy in 2024 and beyond.”

Daryna Mayer reported from Kyiv, Yuliya Talmazan from London and Dan De Luce from Washington.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com