Is it enough to survive the war?

– The Ukrainians began to show clear signs that they ran out of critical ammunition at the end of 2023, around November, December – George Barros, an analyst from the Institute for the Study of War, told the New York Post.

Fears that Ukraine will lose the war due to a lack of weapons have reached a peak.

As Politiko writes, the Ukrainian front line could be broken this summer due to the expected Russian offensive, since the Russian forces are significantly more numerous than the Ukrainian ones.

However, on Saturday, the House of Representatives finally broke the deadlock and passed $60.8 billion in desperately needed aid.

With the Senate and US President Joe Biden looking set to approve the package, the big question may now be whether that fresh round of aid is too little and too late.

Is that enough help for Ukraine?

Leading officials think so – at least until the end of the year.

“With the reinforcement that would come from military aid, both practically and psychologically, the Ukrainians are fully capable of holding out until 2024 and overthrowing Putin’s arrogant attitude that time is on his hand,” CIA Director William Burns told Congress last week. .

But if Congress does not approve aid, Burns warned there is a “real risk” that Ukraine could lose the war by the end of the year or that Russia would be in a position to “essentially dictate the terms of a political settlement.”

– This is not an immediate reaction. This is a significant aid package of over $60 billion – said Scott Cullinan, director of government relations at the Ukrainian-American human rights group Razom. – Is it enough to achieve victory as needed? Of course, this will not be the last aid package.

He argues that more must be done.

“This really needs help, but it’s not a magic wand,” said Nicholas Locker, a research associate in the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. Loker explained that many expected the year 2024 to be difficult for Ukraine, but that the problems on the battlefield – contributed to by the delay in aid – created significant obstacles for Ukraine.

Russia is also expected to launch a massive counter-offensive in the coming weeks. Locker hopes the aid package will help Ukraine survive until next year, when ammunition production could increase significantly.

– The aid will be enough to sustain Ukraine until the end of this year, that’s for sure. Maybe they will even take them a little in 2025 – predicts Baros.

Some analysts believe that the previous $45 billion package, which was approved in 2022, kept Ukraine relatively strong until last October – about 10 months. But no one knows for sure how long the new aid will keep Ukraine alive.

“Give us the damn ‘patriots’!”

Fears about the fragility of the front line have only been heightened by an unprecedented barrage of Russian attacks designed to knock out Ukraine’s electricity grid. Political leaders of Ukraine admitted to “Politika” that public morale is sinking and that frustration with the West appears in every conversation.

– Give us damned “patriots” – shouted the Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba.

He warned that Ukraine is trapped in a vicious circle – the weapons it needs are withheld or delayed, then Western allies complain that Kiev is pulling back, making it less likely to send more aid in the future.

While Germany has agreed to deliver the “patriots”, the question is whether this will prove to be enough, and the mood in the higher ranks of the military is even gloomier than Kulebino’s.

Can Ukraine still win?

Ukraine has defied many expectations, even within the US, but currently their fortunes have turned for the worse. The Kremlin now fires up to 10 times more artillery than Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky recently estimated.

In February, Ukraine was forced to withdraw from the eastern city of Avdiyivka, a defeat they attributed to a lack of ammunition. All this also eroded the morale of Ukrainians.

– Now we have seen eight months of this fight for additional help. The problems we are seeing now on the battlefield, I think in many cases can be directly linked to the failure of Congress to approve additional aid to Ukraine – said analyst Doug Klein.

Ukraine recently moved to lower the conscription age to 17, but is struggling with the fact that many are trying to avoid war.

– We have many people who are ready to protect the homeland. But of course, motivation, morale can drop, especially when they go to the front line and see that, well, there’s no ammunition. There is no equipment – said Zelenski.

Some critics of the renewed aid package argue that Ukraine cannot win.

– There is no clear consensus on the definition of victory – Loker said, noting that he believes that the chances of Ukraine’s victory have certainly increased now that aid to Ukraine has passed the lower house of Congress.

– I define the Ukrainian victory as the liberation of the territory of the Ukrainians, the return to their legal borders before 2014, including Crimea. I think it is still militarily possible. It is completely dependent on consistent, transparent assistance to Ukraine in the future – Baros said.

Ukraine also has a significant labor shortage compared to Russia, which is much larger than its population — 144 million versus roughly 38 million, according to Worldometer. Given all these dynamics, some leading voices in foreign policy are skeptical that Ukraine will be able to regain all of its lost territory.

“Neither side will be able to achieve victory in the most ideal sense,” said Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, last month. Instead, Rubio believes the U.S. goal should be to strengthen Ukraine so it can negotiate the most favorable terms.

Cloud of uncertainty over future aid to Ukraine

One of the main factors undermining Ukraine’s war planning is the fact that the flow of US aid has been uneven.

– The approach we had so far was to jump from crisis to crisis, wait for the situation to become extremely serious, and then suddenly send a lot of material in a way that is too little and too late, and then sit idly by. This does not allow the Ukrainians to properly plan how to conduct a prolonged defense… because they do not know what will come to them in terms of resources – Baros said.

An additional complication is the deep uncertainty about what the balance of power in Washington will be after the November 5 election.