US-Ukraine military aid package fuels speculation on war dynamics

Western media continues to report that select US officials have resumed discussing the idea of “freezing the lines” where they are because the latest package of US military assistance to Ukraine may not be enough for Ukraine to regain all its territory.

 Supporters of the current package have not claimed that it would by itself allow Ukraine to liberate all occupied territory, and the discussion of possible end states of the war is very premature as President Joe Biden signed the bill authorizing the new package only two days ago, Caliber.Az reports citing the report of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

 US military assistance is currently en route to Ukraine and will take several weeks to arrive to frontline units and have tangible battlefield impacts. Ukrainian forces will first have to leverage the incoming US aid to stabilize the frontlines and stop ongoing Russian advances, particularly in the Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar directions, in the coming weeks.

Ukrainian forces will have to defend against the Russian summer offensive effort and prevent Russian forces from making operationally significant advances over the summer months before Ukrainian forces will be in a position to contest the theater-wide initiative and conduct a counteroffensive operation later in 2024 or 2025.

ISW continues to assess that sufficient and consistent Western aid will be critical for future Ukrainian counteroffensive efforts, although the US and the West will likely need to be responsive as the Ukrainian military command determines the scope and focus of such operations and relays Ukraine’s needs to Western partners in the weeks and months preceding future counteroffensive operations.

Ukraine’s ability to regain all of its territory in the long term rests on numerous future decisions in the West, in the Kremlin, and in Kyiv, and any discussions that treat the prospects of Ukrainian victory or defeat as predetermined outcomes ignore how all involved parties could dynamically alter the course of the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Western partners continue to provide Ukraine with immediate and longer-term military assistance, particularly for Ukraine’s air defences. The US Department of Defense (DoD) announced on April 26 a new package of military assistance to Ukraine worth $6 billion as part of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI).

The package includes Patriot air defense munitions, National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) munitions, High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) munitions, artillery ammunition, and equipment to integrate Ukrainian and Western air defense systems. The US DoD stated that the announcement marks the beginning of the “contracting process,” and the timeline of the production and delivery of these weapons is unclear at this time. Strikes.

The Ukrainian military has reportedly pulled US-provided M1A1 Abrams tanks from the frontline in part because of the widespread threat of Russian drones and other strikes. The Associated Press (AP) reported on April 26, citing two unspecified US military officials, that Ukraine has removed Abrams tanks from the frontline partly because Russia’s widespread drone usage has made it too difficult for Ukrainian forces to operate Abrams without Russian forces detecting and striking Abrams with drones.

Any armored vehicles that Russian or Ukrainian forces may field on the frontline are visible to each other’s reconnaissance drones, so Ukrainian forces are likely prioritizing efforts to protect the limited number of Abrams tanks they currently possess. Any armored vehicles on the battlefield without active protection and counter-drone systems are highly vulnerable to enemy drone, artillery, and anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) strikes. The Russian government has hyper-fixated on Russia’s ability to destroy Western-made weapon systems to posture Russian military equipment as superior to Western designs. Russia will soon open an exhibition of captured Western equipment in Moscow and has given military and monetary awards to Russian soldiers who destroyed Western armored vehicles.

Russian authorities continue efforts to expand the definition of prosecutable anti-war sentiment to portray Russians who oppose the war in Ukraine as opposing Russia itself.