Meanwhile, the Kharkiv offensive has stalled in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance and the relaxation by President Biden of his rules preventing Ukraine from using U.S.-supplied weapons systems to target Russian forces massing just over the border. As The Post recently reported, “Ukrainian attacks on Russian supply lines have left Russian units scrambling for food, water and ammunition, blunting Moscow’s renewed invasion into Ukraine’s northeast Kharkiv region.” Once again, as has happened repeatedly throughout this conflict, defending has proved easier than attacking.
Kimberly Kagan, president of the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank that closely tracks the fighting, told me: “Russia, surprisingly, has failed to restore operational-level maneuver to the battlefield in Ukraine in 2024 despite the severe, protracted delay in the provision of American military assistance.” Michael Kofman, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who recently returned from visiting Ukraine, wrote on X: “Ukraine faces difficult months of fighting ahead, but the situation at the front is better than it was this spring.”
Russia has paid a heavy price for its modest ground gains. British intelligence estimates that Russia’s casualties in May — an average of more than 1,200 soldiers a day killed or wounded — were the highest of the entire war. Overall, estimates of Russian losses for the conflict range from at least 350,000 Russian troops killed or wounded (the U.S. estimate) to more than 500,000 killed or wounded (the British estimate). Those are staggering losses — more soldiers than Russia has lost in all of its other wars combined since 1945.
According to the New York Times, Putin is still able to recruit 25,000 to 30,000 new soldiers a month, so Russia can replace its battlefield losses, but that may not work indefinitely. Already, the Economist notes, “roughly 2% of all Russian men aged between 20 and 50 may have been either killed or severely wounded in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale war,” thereby exacerbating Russia’s existing demographic crisis.
Of course, Ukraine has also suffered heavy casualties, but, since its forces are now on the defensive, their losses are lower than the attackers’. And Ukraine, too, is expanding its ranks by enlisting more troops — including criminals — under a recently passed mobilization law.
The biggest danger to Ukraine at the moment is not from a Russian ground assault but from the air. Last week’s Russian missile strikes, which hit a children’s hospital in Kyiv and killed at least 37 people, are a reminder of the constant menace. Kofman notes that “Ukraine is very low on ammunition for legacy Soviet [air defense] systems, whereas Russian drone and missile production rates have increased significantly.”
The Russians have had particular success in recent months in targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Ukrainian officials say Russian strikes have taken offline nine of the 18 gigawatts that the country needs for peak consumption this winter. Electricity is already being rationed, and it could be limited to as little as five hours a day in the winter. As Ukrainian officials have been saying since the start of the war, they are in desperate need of more air defenses, to protect not only their cities and infrastructure but also their front-line positions. Ukrainian troops have suffered devastating damage from Russian “glide bombs,” as stockpiled dumb bombs retrofitted with cheap guidance kits are called.
At last week’s NATO summit, the allies announced that they were sending dozens of new air defense systems to Ukraine, including at least four U.S.-made Patriot batteries, the most effective system for stopping Russian missiles. Talks are underway for Israel to contribute as many as eight of its own earlier-generation Patriot batteries, which it no longer needs. The imminent delivery of F-16s from the Netherlands and Denmark should help, too: Those fighter aircraft can chase away the Russian bombers dropping glide bombs. It would also be useful if Biden relaxed U.S. rules to allow Ukraine to use U.S. weapons systems to target Russian air bases.
Despite the improved outlook for Ukraine, there is little hope of a dramatic change in the conflict anytime soon. Putin has made clear he has no interest in a cease-fire: He says Russia won’t stop fighting until Ukraine renounces any ambitions to join NATO, “denazifies” (meaning a change in regime) and hands over all four of the provinces claimed by Russia (Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia), though none of them are fully controlled by Russian forces at the moment. In short, Putin is still demanding Ukraine’s complete surrender.
“Putin,” Kagan emailed me, “seems willing to take hideous losses as long as he makes minor gains and prevents Ukraine from retaking territory, trying to convince Ukraine and its backers that the war is unwinnable. He is trying to shape our perceptions, because he cannot decisively change the reality.”
So far, Putin hasn’t had much luck in undermining Western support for Ukraine; at last week’s NATO summit, members declared that Kyiv is on an “irreversible path” toward NATO membership. But all that could change if, as now appears likely, former president Donald Trump wins in November — especially now that he has selected Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), a leading opponent of U.S. aid to Ukraine, as his running mate.
Trump keeps promising to end the war even before he is inaugurated. That probably means forcing Ukraine to give up more land to Russia under threat of a U.S. aid cutoff. NATO leaders focused last week on “Trump-proofing” the alliance and its support for Ukraine, but, for Ukraine to survive, it needs to continue receiving U.S. aid. The current package will run out by the end of the year.
If the United States were to cut off Ukraine, further Russian advances would be inevitable; the Europeans alone simply can’t manufacture enough artillery shells and other munitions to keep Ukraine supplied. However, if the United States keeps aid flowing, Ukraine can hold its ground, staying largely on the defensive but taking advantage of any opportunities that might arise for counteroffensives.
“After a year of stalemate things may look different and some form of a cease-fire — formal or informal — may become possible,” Eugene Rumer, a former U.S. national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia, emailed me last week. “The communications channels that exist now or the informal understandings could lead to a more structured dialogue about something more formal, like a real cease-fire. Then both sides begin to furiously prepare for the next war.”
A frozen conflict is not an ideal scenario from anyone’s perspective — least of all the Ukrainians’ — but it’s better than a Russian victory. And that’s the likely outcome if Trump and his MAGA Republicans end aid to Ukraine. The Ukrainians have fought so hard, so long and so successfully that for the United States to abandon them now would be one of the most unforgivable mistakes in the long history of U.S. foreign policy.
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