This crucial moment could also force a difficult decision for Western governments, which have so far offered to support Ukraine at an ever-increasing cost to its own economies and national arms reserves.
“I think you’re about to get to the point where one side or the other will succeed,” a senior NATO official said. “Either the Russians will get to Slovyansk and Kramatorsk or the Ukrainians will stop them here. And if the Ukrainians are able to keep the line here, in the face of that number of forces, that will matter.”
Three possible results
Western officials are looking closely at three possible scenarios that they believe could be developed:
Russia could continue to gain incremental gains in two key eastern provinces. Or the battle lines could harden to a standstill that will last for months or years, causing tremendous casualties on both sides and a slow crisis that will continue to be a drain on the global economy.
Then there are what officials consider the least likely possibility: Russia could redefine its war goals, announce that it has achieved victory, and try to come close to fighting. At the moment, this scenario seems to be little more than an illusion, say the sources.
If Russia is able to consolidate some of its gains in the east, US officials are increasingly fearing that Russian President Vladimir Putin may eventually use the territory as a starting point to advance further in Ukraine. “I am sure that if Ukraine is not strong enough, they will go further,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned on Tuesday, urging the West to send more weapons more quickly. “We have shown them our strength. And it is important that this strength is also demonstrated together with us by our Western partners.”
Western military aid, he said, “must arrive faster” if Ukraine’s allies want to thwart Russia’s territorial ambitions.
Western officials generally believe that Russia is in a more favorable position in the east, relying solely on the masses. Still, “Russian progress is not a preliminary conclusion,” a senior Biden administration official said.
As the front lines of the conflict have turned into a war of attrition built around the back and forth artillery fire, both sides have suffered tremendous casualties and are now facing possible labor shortages. . Russia has also suffered losses of up to a third of its ground force, and U.S. intelligence officials have publicly said that Russia will fight for serious gains without full mobilization, a politically dangerous measure that Putin has so far. he has not been willing to do. .
For now, the fighting is focused on two sister cities on opposite sides of the Seversky Donets River, Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. Ukrainian fighters are almost completely surrounded by Sievierodonetsk.
Although Western analysts believe that Ukraine is more likely to defend Lysychansk, which is on high ground, there are already worrying indications that Russia is trying to cut off the city’s supply lines from the southeast.
“In many ways, the fate of our Donbas is being decided” around these two cities, Zelensky said last week.
A preference for Soviet systems
U.S. officials insist Western weapons are still flowing on the front lines of the fight. But local reports of a shortage of weapons, and frustrated requests from Ukrainian officials on the front lines, have raised questions about the effectiveness of supply lines. Ukraine has demanded not only heavy artillery, but also even more basic supplies, such as ammunition.
Part of the problem, the sources say, is that while Ukraine is running out of old Soviet ammunition that fits into existing systems, there have also been obstacles to the transition of its fighters to Western systems compatible with the NATO. On the one hand, training soldiers in these systems takes time and takes the necessary fighters away from the battlefield.
In some cases, according to a source familiar with US intelligence, Ukraine simply chooses not to use unknown Western systems. For example, despite receiving hundreds of Switchblade drones, some units prefer to use commercial drones equipped with explosives that are easier to use.
The Biden administration announced a new aid package earlier this month that included the high-mobility artillery rocket system.or HiMARS, which is capable of launching rocket and missile bombing and which Ukraine had been urgently calling for for weeks. But even though a small group of Ukrainian soldiers began training in the system almost immediately after the package was announced, it requires three weeks of training and has not yet entered the fight. The top defense official would only say that the system will enter Ukraine “soon”.
Meanwhile, a limited number of Soviet-era ammunition still exist in other parts of the world that can be sent to Ukraine. The United States is asking nations with older stocks to find out what they have available to give to Ukraine, but the battle of punishing artillery is “wiping Soviet things off the face of the earth” for Ukraine and its supply allies. , according to a US official.
While the United States has a clear picture of Russia’s battlefield losses, it has struggled from the beginning to assess Ukraine’s fighting strength. Officials have acknowledged that the United States does not have a clear picture of where Western weapons are going or the effectiveness with which they are used once they cross the border into Ukraine, making intelligence predictions about the fighting be difficult and political decisions on how and when to replenish Ukraine. equally complicated.
A senior Biden administration official told CNN that the United States is trying to “better understand its own [the Ukrainians’] “It’s hard to know,” he said. “It’s clear that Ukraine is using a lot of artillery that The US and other Western nations have provided, because much of it moves in and out of the country for repairs.
This blind spot is partly because Ukraine does not say everything to the West, Western officials say. And because the fighting is concentrated in such a small area relatively close to Russia, Western intelligence services do not have the same visibility as elsewhere.
“As you go down to the tactical level, especially where most of the fighting is, it’s further away from us, closer to Russia, and the forces are more densely packed very, very close to each other.” , he said. said a senior NATO official. “So it’s hard to get a good granular picture of the state of the fight occasionally in the east.”
It is also difficult to predict how the Ukrainian army will act at this crucial time because, as the number of casualties has increased, hastily trained civilian volunteers are being sent to the fight, the NATO official added. Its performance under fire is an unknown amount.
“It’s one thing to have people available, but the question is, are they ready for the fight? I think you’ll see that as a factor,” the official said.
Prediction of Putin’s next move
Meanwhile, the United States and other Western officials see no sign that Putin’s commitment to prosecuting the costly war has waned.
“In terms of the strategic goals that we consider Putin to have over Ukraine, I see no indication that they have changed,” the NATO official said. “Putin still believes that he will eventually succeed and physically control or gain some form of political control over Ukraine in a significant part or ideally in its entirety.”
But even if Putin’s commitment remains strong, there is a growing awareness that the West’s commitment may not be.
As the fighting has intensified, the cost to Western governments has continued to rise. Some Western governments, including the United States, have been concerned that the flow of weapons donated to Ukraine has depleted critical national reserves for self-defense.
“It’s a valid concern” for the United States, the government official acknowledged.
Then, of course, there is the needle of high energy prices and high inflation. As these costs begin to affect ordinary citizens, in the US and Europe, and as media attention begins to deviate from the day-to-day fighting, some officials fear that Western support for Ukraine may diminish.
The spokesman for the Ukrainian army’s international legion on Monday ridiculed the “feeling of complacency” among Ukraine’s military bosses, saying the country needs much more support if it wants to defeat Russia’s invasion.
“There is a certain sense of complacency that seems to have fallen on our Western partners that the arms deliveries that Ukraine has already received are somehow enough to win the war,” said Damien Magrou, a spokesman for the International Legion. for the Defense of Ukraine. , during a press conference.
“They’re not! They’re nowhere near anything to allow us to defeat the Russians on the battlefield.”