Although Ukraine’s gains were widely celebrated over the weekend, US officials know that Russian President Vladimir Putin still has troops and resources to draw on, and his forces still control large swaths of the east and south. “I agree there should be no spike because Russia still has cards it can play,” said Philip Breedlove, a retired US Air Force general who was NATO’s top commander from 2013 to 2016. “Ukraine is now clearly making steady changes to its east and north, and I believe that if the West properly equips Ukraine, it will be able to maintain its gains.” Lawmakers particularly pointed to the precision weapons and missile systems the US and Western nations have provided Ukraine as key to the dramatic shift in momentum, including the High Mobility Precision-Guided Artillery Missile System, or HIMARS, and the Anti High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile, or HARM, designed to target and destroy radar-equipped air defense systems. “They’re there, they’re in the theater and they’re making a difference,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In the hands of highly motivated Ukrainian fighters who make the most of weapons ranging from drones and abandoned Russian weapons to advanced weapons from the West, HIMARS allow the Ukrainians to “dramatically turn the tide,” Coons said. . Meanwhile, a senior defense official said the U.S. is looking at future needs, including discussions to provide more intensive combat training for larger Ukrainian units, a shift from current training that focuses on smaller groups learning to operate specific weapons . It is also considering sending additional air defense systems, as well as lethal drones and more surveillance drones. The official was one of two who spoke to reporters Monday on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the plan. Ukraine’s launch in recent days of a long-awaited counteroffensive — in a different part of the country from where Russian troops occupying Ukraine had massed to counter it — has brought about the biggest territorial shift in months in the 200-day war that began when Putin led Russian forces into the neighboring country, targeting its Western-leaning government. U.S. officials acknowledged that the U.S. provided intelligence to help the Ukrainian counteroffensive, but declined to say how much or whether Western officials helped strategize the idea of throwing Russian forces off guard, drawing attention to plans to attack in the south, while in in fact they were planning more. terrible campaign in the east. The US provided information “on the conditions” in the country, one of the officials said, but “in the end, this was Ukraine’s choice. The Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian political leadership made the decisions on how to conduct this counteroffensive.” Ukrainian forces on Monday claimed to have recaptured a wide swath of territory and more than 20 Ukrainian settlements from Russia, pushing up to the two countries’ northeastern border. Russian soldiers were surrendering in such numbers that Ukraine was struggling to accommodate them, Ukrainian military officials said. The Ukrainians have pounded a total of 400 targets with HIMARS since the U.S. began supplying them, using them “with devastating results,” Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters late last week as the Ukraine’s counteroffensive was underway. . The truck-mounted, GPS-guided systems fire faster, farther and more accurately than the Soviet-designed rocket launchers used by Russia and Ukraine. They can hit targets up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) away. Ukrainian forces have used the 16 HIMARS and many similar systems to strike supply lines, ammunition depots and other key Russian targets. The Ukrainians “believe that this happened because of the new technology equipment and weapons that we have sent them. Well they said if you would have sent them six months ago,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois. “We didn’t have them six months ago, but you know, we had to build the weapons and train their people on them, it takes time.” But Ukrainian leaders are still pushing for more — including fighter jets and the Army’s Longer-Range Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, a surface-to-surface missile that the U.S. has so far refused to send. A key question going forward will be how much more Congress and the American public are willing to spend on the war in Ukraine, which the US and the West say also poses a major threat to Europe. It is unclear whether or how the successes of Ukrainian fighters in the last day will affect the ongoing debate. The White House has asked Congress to give the green light for an additional $11.7 billion in aid as part of an overall government funding measure that lawmakers must approve before the end of the month. “I haven’t seen any lack of appetite so far” for continued funding for Ukraine, said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. “I think seeing the ability to take the help they’ve been given and then clearly being successful in some of their endeavors is an encouragement to want to do more of it.” The US – the main contributor to Ukraine’s war effort among NATO members – has poured more than $15 billion in weapons and other military support into Ukraine since January. Biden acknowledged battlefield gains for Ukraine over the weekend, but declined to elaborate. “I’m not going to talk about it now because things are ongoing,” he told reporters. Breedlove noted that despite recent combat losses, Putin still has “a lot of tanks and a lot of trucks and a lot of people that he can still throw at this problem. It’s not just his best tanks, his best trucks, or his best people.” But he warned that winter could bring its most daunting challenge. Putin’s moves to cut fuel supplies to Europe, which is expected to raise prices, are likely aimed at turning public opinion across the region. “Although Mr Putin’s army has won on the military front, his big card but likely to play is how well Europe holds together in a winter that Mr Putin is going to make absolutely miserable for the European people ». Breedlove said. “I think Mr Putin is desperately trying to get on with the winter because his big hope now is to separate the European people from their European political leadership.”
Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim, Lisa Mascaro and Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
