WASHINGTON — The crushing war between Ukraine and its Russian invaders has escalated in the future Donald Trump’s inaugurationwith President Joe Biden to spend billions more dollars in military aid before questioning American support for Kiev’s defense under the new administration.
Russia, Ukraine and their global allies are doing their utmost to put their side in the best possible position for any changes Trump might make to US policy. the almost three year old war. The president-elect has emphasized this in recent days Russia and Ukraine immediately agree to a ceasefire and said Ukraine should likely prepare to receive less U.S. military aid.
On the front lines of the war, Ukrainian forces are aware of Trump’s fast-approaching presidency and the risk of loss. their biggest lender.
If that happens, “the people who are with me, my unit, will not withdraw,” said a Ukrainian drone company commander. fighting in Russia’s Kursk region with the 47th Brigade, The Associated Press told by telephone.
“As long as we have ammunition, as long as we have weapons, as long as we have means to defeat the enemy, we will fight,” said the commander, who uses his military call sign Hummer. He spoke on condition he not be named, citing Ukrainian military rules and security concerns.
“But if all the resources run out, you have to understand that we will be destroyed very quickly,” he said.
The Biden administration does pushing every available dollar out the door to shore up Ukraine’s defenses before he leaves office in six weeks, announcing more than $2 billion in additional aid since Trump won the presidential election last month.
The US has a total of $62 billion in military aid since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. And more help is coming.
The administration is on track to disperse the US portion of the US $50 billion loan to Ukrainebacked by frozen Russian assets, before Biden leaves the White House, US officials said. They said the US and Ukraine are at an “advanced stage” of discussing the terms of the loan and close to implementing the $20 billion of the larger loan that the US is backing.
Biden has done that too relaxed restrictions on Ukraine by using longer-range American missiles against military targets deeper inside Russia, after months of refusing these calls for fear of provoking Russia into nuclear war or attacks on the West. It’s new too has allowed Ukraine to use anti-personnel landmineswhich are banned by many countries.
However, Biden and his senior advisers are skeptical that allowing freer use of the longer-range missiles will change the broader trajectory of the war, according to two senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
But the government has at least some degree of confidence as a result of its struggle, combined with continued strong European supportThat means the country will leave after giving Ukraine the tools it needs to continue its fight against Russia for some time, the officials said.
Enough to hold out, but not enough to defeat Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces, according to Ukraine and some of its allies.
Even now, “the Biden administration has been very careful not to touch the possibility of a defeated Putin or a defeated Russia” for fear of the uproar that could cause, said retired Gen. Philip Breedlove, a former allied supreme commander of NATO. . He criticizes Biden’s cautious pace of military aid to Ukraine.
The events far from the front lines this past weekend have demonstrated this the impact of the war on the Russian army.
In Syria, rebels seized the country’s capital overthrew Russian-allied President Bashar Assad. Russian forces in Syria had supported Assad for years, but they did not removed from the rebel attackunwilling to take losses to defend their ally.
Biden said this was further evidence that US support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was weakening the Russian military.
Trump, who has long spoken positively about Putin and described Zelensky as a “showman” who gets money from the US, used that moment to call for an immediate ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia.
And asked in a TV interview – previously recorded he met Zelenskyy over the weekend in Paris – if Ukraine should prepare for the possibility of reduced aid, Trump said: “Yes. Probably. Certainly.”
Trump’s supporters call that pre-negotiation maneuvering by a recognized dealmaker. His critics say they fear this shows he is in Putin’s power.
Zelensky said Monday that the withdrawal of Russian troops from outposts around the world shows that “the entire army of this great pseudo-empire is fighting against the Ukrainian people today.”
“To force Putin to end the war, Ukraine must be strong on the battlefield before it can be strong diplomatically,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media, repeating almost daily calls for more longer-range missiles from the US and Europe.
In Kursk, Hummer, the Ukrainian commander, said he has noticed a decline in Russian artillery attacks and shelling since the US and its European allies eased restrictions on the use of longer-range missiles.
But Moscow has escalated its offensives in other ways over the past six months, burning through men and equipment in infantry assaults and other attacks far faster than it can replace them, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
In Kursk, that includes Russia sending waves of soldiers on motorcycles and golf carts to storm Ukrainian positions, Hummer said. The Ukrainian drone commander and his comrades are defending the ground they captured from Russia with firearms, tanks and armored vehicles supplied by the US and other allies.
Ukraine’s supporters fear that the kind of immediate ceasefire Trump is pushing for will come largely on Putin’s terms and allow the Russian leader to resume the war once his military recovers.
“Putin is sacrificing his own soldiers at a grotesque rate to take any territory, under the assumption that the US will tell Ukraine that US aid is over unless Russia is allowed to keep what it has taken,” says Phillips O’ Brien, a healthcare professor. strategic studies at Scotland’s University of St. Andrews, wrote on his Substack channel.
Putin’s need for troops prompted him Deploy North Korean forces. Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use longer-range missiles more broadly in Russia was partly a response aimed at discouraging North Korea from deeper involvement in the war, one of the senior administration officials said.
Since 2022, Russia has been pulling troops and other military assets from Syria, Central Asia and elsewhere to join the fight against Ukraine, said George Burros, an expert on the Russia-Ukraine conflict at the Institute for the Study of War.
Any combat forces Russia has left in Syria that could be deployed in Ukraine are unlikely to change the momentum on the battlefield, Burros said.
“The Kremlin has given Ukraine as much priority as possible,” he said.
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Novikov reported from Kiev, Ukraine.