Washington's threat of direct contact with the Russian Federation would be the best guarantee for Ukraine - WP
Biden should tell this strategy in the spring. For their part, representatives of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives have already blocked the last tranche of funding, which President Biden was about to allocate Kiev. Viewers also believe that the Kremlin head Vladimir Putin is counting on returning to the White House of Expatient Donald Trump.
There is also a risk that in the current circumstances, residents of Ukraine may begin to blame their government that the front line is not moving. In Western countries, they also understand that the patience of their own citizens about financing Ukrainian war is not infinite. It is reported that Washington also prepares an argument that Ukraine will still need support to eventually become part of the event, even if in the near future Kiev no longer expects to return all its occupied territory.
But in the short term, due to a shortage of ammunition on the forefront and differences in Washington, there may be serious difficulties in the Defense Forces of Ukraine. According to Jack Wtling, a senior researcher at the British Analytical Center, the Royal Unified Institute for Defense Research, the first half of 2024 may bring a little change in the control of the controlled territories.
But resources, training of personnel and combat losses that each party experienced in the next few months can be decisive in how the conflict will develop in the long run. Before the West, the choice is to support Ukraine so that its leaders can protect their territories and prepare for defense in 2025, or to put up with the inevitable advancement of the Russian Federation.
The author of the publication suggests that the right opportunity to allow Ukraine to completely release the territory has already been lost. In their book, our fortune tellers will perish: the Russian invasion and the war of Ukraine for independence, "The Wall Street Journal correspondent, Yaroslav Trofimov, writes that Western governments have gradually reduced military support to Ukraine by fearing nuclear escalation.
The United States and their allies directed the unprecedented amount of assistance, but the fact that it was excessively dosed, nullified Kiev's military efforts. At the time when the help arrived, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation had already managed to build defense redoubts, which, in fact, were insurmountable for the Armed Forces. There is another opinion, in particular, that Biden administration was responsible to avoid confrontation with the Russian Federation.
There is no guarantee that large volumes of timely assistance would provide a decisive victory for Ukraine, Kolumnist Bloomberg Dal Brands wrote. "The best guarantee of the result would be threats of direct military intervention," he said. But no one wanted to maintain such a strategy because of too obvious risks. Biden would have to cross the Kremlin's red lines more aggressively, when the uncertainty about Putin's response was at the peak.
Instead, Ukrainians and allies feared what could happen after a successful counter -offensive. The Armed Forces was surprised by almost everyone when they repelled the initial offensive of Russian troops to Kiev and resolutely defended their positions in the first months of the war. In his interview in 2022, Zelensky said that Putin, like Piton, opened his mouth and tried to swallow Ukraine as a rabbit.
"But we are not a rabbit, and it turned out that he cannot swallow us - and even risks to burst himself," he said. At the same time, the Russian Federation also defended the captured territories, withstood international pressure and is preparing for a new offensive, which is accompanied by non -decor missile shelling of Ukrainian cities. In Kiev, they are aware that confrontation of aggression depends on foreign support.
"We would not survive without the support of the United States, this is a real fact," Zelensky said this month. Now it is difficult not to notice the feeling of despair in the Ukrainian corridors of the authorities of Ukraine, says the author of the publication. After almost two years from the beginning of a full -scale invasion of Ukraine, the leadership of Ukraine still continues to ask the event to ask for weapons and political obligations.
US officials and their foreign counterparts expect the "lean year". The Defense Forces of Ukraine, which are increasingly depleted, will focus on defense, not on the gradual liberation of the territories captured by Russia. Russian troops control about a fifth of the internationally recognized territory of Ukraine, including Crimea and the Great Territory of the Southeast.
And the opinion of US representatives on how hostilities unfold, does not agree with Zelensky's statements that by October this year Ukraine will be able to be released from Russian troops. Last week, a monthly meeting on Ukraine with the participation of representatives of the Pentagon and officials from 50 other countries did not produce the expected result. At the same time, many Ukrainian units at the front are already over the ammunition.
According to MP Roman Kostenko, to answer the question of what the further plan of Ukraine is, you need to understand what resources will be. Now everything indicates that there will be less than last year when Ukraine tried to move to the counter -offensive. Recall that, according to Foreign Affairs, even the US armies could not have the strength to overcome the defensive construction of Russian troops.