US aid will give Ukraine breathing space – it won’t be enough to beat Russia

After an agonising delay, Ukraine’s beleaguered forces will finally get a $61bn aid package from the US.

The US Senate Intelligence Committee chairperson Mark Warner said on CBS News on Sunday that US military aid to Ukraine, including long-range ATACMS missiles, would be on its way to Ukraine “by the end of the week” if, as expected, the Senate passes the bill on Tuesday.

However, Christopher Tuck, a reader in Strategic Studies at King’s College London, said: “The release of this next tranche of US aid for Ukraine will certainly help matters but it will not suddenly transform the battlefield situation in Ukraine’s favour: no single initiative, whether it’s F-16s or the confiscation of Russian savings, will do that.

“Moscow’s forces have not been idle while partisan disputes in the US Congress delayed military support for months on end.

“Russia has been able to mobilise its war economy and manpower such that it now has sufficient material capabilities to conduct attacks along multiple axes, stretching Ukrainian forces and making it more difficult for Ukraine to generate the reserves necessary to recommence offensive operations,” Tuck added.

By transforming Russia into a war economy, importing key parts and materials from Iran, China and North Korea, and pushing large numbers of poorly trained young men on to the frontline like cannon-fodder, the Putin regime has defied predictions that its invasion would peter out. Instead it has started to retake ground and unleash more death and destruction on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.

That said, US aid cannot come a moment too soon, with Ukraine’s outgunned forces fast running out of munitions.

Last week, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russian invaders were firing 10 times as many shells as Ukraine’s forces and had at their disposal 30 times more aircraft.

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The US military aid to be delivered in coming weeks will probably include more Patriot missiles to defend the country’s power plants and other key structures that have come under devastating assault in the past month. Portable air defence systems, including the American Stinger system, could assist troops along the front line where Russian jets have stepped up attacks on Ukrainian positions .

In April, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky said his country’s position had “significantly worsened” after Russian forces stepped up attacks along several points on the 1,000km front line since capturing the industrial city of Avdiivka in February.

Crucially, it’s hoped that the arrival of the long-delayed $61bn (£49bn) package will thwart Russia’s plans for a massive early-summer offensive, aimed at changing the course of the conflict.

Tuck notes that while Russia is making gains, it is still suffering heavy casualties, even in circumstances where it has a significant tactical fire superiority.

“A new infusion of US munitions might be able to challenge that fire superiority, limit Russian gains, and inflict unsustainable casualties on Russian forces,” he says. “By undermining Russian hopes of making further advances and by inflicting further heavy manpower losses on Russian forces, Ukraine can undermine Russian hopes that continuing to fight will improve their situation.”

Senator Warner was keen to stress the extensive battlefield impact that Ukrainian forces had achieved thanks to US and EU military assistance – and the relatively low cost to the two economic superpowers.

“Now and the last two years, with less than 3 per cent of our defence budget, the Ukrainians have eliminated 87 per cent of the Russians pre-existing ground forces, 63 per cent of their tanks, 32 per cent of their armoured personnel carriers,” he said, “without a single American soldier lost, because of the courage of the Ukrainians, and the equipment they’ve received from us, and from our European allies.”

Zelensky is now likely to increase pressure on European allies to supply weapons it needs to defend its skies – and go on the attack.

Germany’s refusal to send long-range Taurus missiles Kyiv could use to take-out the Kerch Bridge, which Russia relies on for access to the occupied Crimean peninsula, is a particular bone of contention.

On Monday, Greece and Spain came under pressure from their EU and Nato allies to provide more air defence systems to Ukraine at a meeting of EU foreign and defence ministers.

The news from Washington will give Ukraine some badly needed breathing space. But many analysts still detect a fear in the West of what might happen if Russia loses.

To put Putin permanently on the backfoot, the requisite – and radical – increase in the quantity and sophistication of weapons it sends to Ukraine is not yet forthcoming. Only this will allow anything like a viable peace deal to emerge.

And until that happens, the terrible death and destruction will continue.