By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

Taking weeks to organize the leaders of  Germany, France, and Italy, below arrived in Kyiv today. Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops holed up alongside civilians in a Sievierodonetsk chemical plant ignored a Russian ultimatum to lay down their arms. 

 

Why Ukraine reaches a pivotal moment

Already a week ago, several news sources asked if the Ukraine war is descending into a ‘frozen conflict’? 

While the war’s outcome hangs in the balance, as pictured below on Wednesday, the United States and Western allies now decided to deliver longer-range artillery and rocket launchers in limited quantities, with ranges of no more than 80 kilometers, to help Ukraine close the gap in long-range strike capabilities. Despite these new deliveries, Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to bank on the assumption that Ukraine’s friends don’t have the stamina to maintain pressure on Russia and support the Ukrainian people.

Last week we argued that it is time for NATO leaders to accept reality formally: Putin is a threat to the alliance and its members, and, therefore, they should declare so in the strategic news concept. Indeed, not declaring Russia a formal threat to NATO territory would compromise NATO’s credibility and would give Putin a pass for the atrocities and violations he has committed in Ukraine. Neither NATO nor the United States can afford to allow that to happen.

Today United States has approved a plan to send an additional $1 billion in military aid to Ukraine following a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels on Wednesday, but the promised delivery falls well short of what Ukrainian officials say they will need to roll back the Russian invasion.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a top advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, outlined on Twitter what Ukraine would need to win the war against Russia, which has been raging since Moscow invaded in late February.

“Being straightforward—to end the war, we need heavy weapons parity: 1000 howitzers caliber 155 mm; 300 MLRS [Multiple Launch Rocket Systems]; 500 tanks; 2000 armored vehicles; 1000 drones,” he tweeted. So far, the United States and its allies have pledged to send ten rocket systems to Ukraine—far short of the 300 Podolyak says his country needs.

“What the Ukrainians need most is long-range artillery and rockets and endless ammunition to counter Russia because that’s what Russia has so much of, and that’s what’s causing all the damage now,” said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of the US Army in Europe.

Hodges said the United States should dramatically increase the number of heavy weapons it sends Ukraine to help tip the scales of the war in Kyiv’s favor, particularly since Russia has a dramatic advantage in terms of the number of troops and artillery systems it can put into the field—even if those troops are poorly trained and equipped.

“Unless we can help Ukraine destroy or at least disrupt all of this artillery and rockets pounding away at Ukrainian positions, then it becomes a matter of math,” he said.

Ukrainian officials are also frustrated that the delivery timetables for heavy weapons systems aren’t moving as quickly as they need. The United States and its allies face steep logistical hurdles in rapidly delivering such equipment—and it will take weeks or months to train Ukrainian forces on such systems.

For weeks capturing Severodonetsk has been a top military goal for Russia, which now controls most of the city.

“We’re here, focused, and we’re about to meet President Zelenskyy now to visit a war site where massacres have been committed, and then to lead the conversations that are scheduled with President Zelenskyy,” Macron said in comments to reporters at the train station in Kyiv.

The visit is “a message of European unity toward Ukrainians, and of support, [a message] about the present and the future because we know the weeks to come are going to be very difficult,” the French president added.

The European leaders will visit Irpin, the suburb northwest of Kyiv where Russian invaders destroyed buildings and allegedly tortured and killed civilians during weeks of occupation before Ukrainian forces pushed them out.

A French diplomatic official told reporters that once Russia’s war is over, “a dialogue” between Moscow and Kyiv “will be needed to find out how we build a sustainable peace,” with security guarantees for Ukraine, and the nature of the relationship between Ukraine and NATO.

The official added: “Zelenskyy must define what would be a military victory for him … We are in favor of a complete victory with the re-establishment of [Ukrainian] territorial integrity over all the territories that have been conquered by the Russians including Crimea.”

The joint visit from the leaders of the three largest EU economies carries important symbolic weight, especially ahead of a meeting of EU leaders next week, when they are set to decide whether to grant Ukraine candidate status to join the bloc. What Macron, Scholz, and Draghi will say on the matter is still unclear.

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis joined the three leaders in Kyiv, taking another route on Thursday morning.

 

Putin does not seem to be in a hurry

For his part, Putin does not seem to be in a hurry. This week the Russian president compared himself to Peter the Great, saying that the 18th-century czar “waged the Great Northern War [against Sweden] for 21 years” to win back territory that was rightfully Russia’s.

Putin has also been leveraging the war’s devastating impact on the global economy to his advantage, blaming the growing global food crisis on Western sanctions against Russia. The message may be resonating: After a meeting with Putin in Sochi this week, Senegalese President Macky Sall, chair of the African Union, called on “partners” to lift sanctions, saying that Putin had expressed willingness to facilitate grain exports through the Black Sea — even as his military has bombed and blockaded Black Sea ports.

 

Three possible outcome scenarios

Russia could continue to make incremental gains in two key eastern provinces. Or the battle lines could harden into a stalemate that drags on for months or years, leading to tremendous casualties and a slow-rolling crisis that will continue to drain the global economy.

Then there is what officials consider the least likely possibility: Russia could redefine its war aims, announce that it has achieved victory, and attempt to engineer a close to the fighting. For now, sources say that scenario appears to be little more than wishful thinking.

Suppose Russia can consolidate some of its gains in the east. In that case, US officials increasingly fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin may eventually be able to use that territory as a staging ground to push further into Ukraine.

Western officials broadly believe Russia is in a more favorable position in the east, based solely on mass. Still, “Russian progress is not a foregone conclusion,” said one senior Biden administration official.

As the front lines of the conflict have settled into a war of attrition built around back-and-forth artillery fire, both sides have suffered tremendous casualties and now face potential manpower shortfalls. Russia has also suffered losses of as much as a third of its ground force, and US intelligence officials have said publicly that Russia will struggle to make any severe gains without a total mobilization, a politically dangerous move that Putin has so far been unwilling to make.

For now, the fighting is centered on two sister cities on opposite sides of the Seversky Donets River, Sievierodonetsk, and Lysychansk. Ukrainian fighters are almost entirely encircled at Sievierodonetsk.

 

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