Ukraine Partition
Ukraine Partition
The Math on Ukraine Doesn’t Add Up, Russian Advance is Ukraine Collapse, Russia's War of Attrition, Why the West is Losing Ukraine, China Surpasses US in Diplomatic Influence.
The Math on Ukraine Doesn’t Add Up
By Senator J.D. Vance (junior senator from Ohio): April 12, Washington DC
By J. D. Vance
Mr. Vance, a Republican, is the junior senator from Ohio.
President Biden wants the world to believe that the biggest obstacle facing Ukraine is Republicans and our lack of commitment to the global community. This is wrong.
Ukraine’s challenge is not the G.O.P.; it’s math. Ukraine needs more soldiers than it can field, even with draconian conscription policies. And it needs more matériel than the United States can provide. This reality must inform any future Ukraine policy, from further congressional aid to the diplomatic course set by the president.
The Biden administration has applied increasing pressure on Republicans to pass a supplemental aid package of more than $60 billion to Ukraine. I voted against this package in the Senate and remain opposed to virtually any proposal for the United States to continue funding this war. Mr. Biden has failed to articulate even basic facts about what Ukraine needs and how this aid will change the reality on the ground.
The most fundamental question: How much does Ukraine need and how much can we actually provide? Mr. Biden suggests that a $60 billion supplemental means the difference between victory and defeat in a major war between Russia and Ukraine. That is also wrong. $60 billion is a fraction of what it would take to turn the tide in Ukraine’s favor. But this is not just a matter of dollars. Fundamentally, we lack the capacity to manufacture the amount of weapons Ukraine needs us to supply to win the war.
Consider our ability to produce 155-millimeter artillery shells. Last year, Ukraine’s then defense minister assessed that their base line requirement for these shells is over four million per year, but said they could fire up to seven million if that many were available. Since the start of the conflict, the United States has gone to great lengths to ramp up production of 155-millimeter shells. We’ve roughly doubled our capacity and can now produce 360,000 per year — less than a tenth of what Ukraine says it needs. The administration’s goal is to get this to 1.2 million — 30 percent of what’s needed — by the end of 2025. This would cost the American taxpayers dearly while yielding an unpleasantly familiar result: failure abroad.
Just this week, the top American military commander in Europe argued that absent further security assistance, Russia could soon have a 10-to-1 artillery advantage over Ukraine. What didn’t gather as many headlines is that Russia’s current advantage is at least 5 to 1, even after all the money we have poured into the conflict. Neither of these ratios plausibly lead to Ukrainian victory.
Read more here.
Russian Advance is Ukraine Collapse
By Brendan Cole, Newsweek, New York City
Russian forces will continue their ongoing offensives to hurt Ukraine's defenses ahead of a renewed push planned for summer, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), whose maps show the latest state of play along the front line.
The independent Washington, D.C.-based think tank said Friday that Russia's troops are trying "to maintain the tempo" of operations in Ukraine's east. This is to stop Kyiv's forces from stabilizing their defensive lines, which analysts have said is not happening quickly enough.
One military expert told Newsweek that Ukraine is not building long trenches like the Russians did last year but are developing fortifications based on "a system of strongpoints, placed in good positions."
As they continue their offensives, Russian forces are readying themselves for a new push in summer and are concentrating on driving as far west of Avdiivka as they can before Ukraine establishes a harder-to-penetrate line in the area, the ISW said.
Following Russia's capture of Avdiivka, in the Donetsk oblast last month, one ISW map shows how Russia forces had this week captured the town Nevelske and advanced in Pervomaiske to the southwest, and Berdychi to the northwest. Another map of the Luhansk oblast showed Russian advances on Synkivka, north of Bakhmut.
Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Friday that Russia was concentrating its efforts in the Avdiivka direction with daily mechanized and infantry assaults as they try to break through Ukrainian defenses.
Russian forces may push ahead with the offensive operations through spring, regardless of difficult weather and terrain conditions, to exploit Ukrainian equipment shortages before the promised Western security assistance arrives, the ISW said.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on February 25 that there would be an audit of the fortifications for which Kyiv had set aside almost $790 million.
However, as Ukraine builds anti-tank ditches and trenches ahead of an expected Russian offensive in the spring, there are concerns that the fortifications were not being developed quickly enough.
Emil Kastehelmi, an open-source intelligence analyst, told Newsweek that even somewhat "mediocre fortifications with mines" can still play a key role in stopping Russia. Moscow's forces will most likely try to advance into the spring, as Ukraine suffers from manpower issues.
"It seems Ukraine is digging long anti-tank ditches and building infantry fighting positions in multiple directions," Kastehelmi said. "Ukraine has somewhat stabilized the front in Avdiivka at the moment, but the Russians still have much reserves that they can commit to the fight.
"Behind Avdijivka, Ukraine isn't building long uniform trenches like the Russians had. It's rather a system of strongpoints, placed in good positions," Kastehelmi added. "Some of the fortresses used by Ukraine, especially in Donetsk, are older, from the war in Donbas.
"New ones are now being built among them, and the existing ones are being improved and expanded," he said. "However, the Ukrainian forces have complained that the fortifications have not been created at a sufficient pace, which seems to be true at least in some areas in Donetsk."
Read more here.
