Politico reported yesterday that the Biden Administration is preparing for the likelihood that Ukraine’s much-vaunted spring offensive will come up short. Publicly, President Joe Biden’s team has offered unwavering support for Ukraine, pledging to load it up with weapons and economic aid for “as long as it takes,” Politico notes. But, if the impending fighting season yields limited gains, administration officials have expressed privately they fear being left high and dry with a failed military endeavor, and will be politically eviscerated from all sides. This is not to mention the actual human cost of failure, that of the tens of thousands of lives expended in hopes of “punishing” Russia.
“We’ve nearly completed the requests of what [Ukraine] said they needed for the counteroffensive as we have surged [sic] weapons and equipment to Ukraine over the past few months,” said one unnamed administration official. But belief in the strategic cause is one thing. Belief in the tactics is another — and behind closed doors the administration is worried about what Ukraine can accomplish.
Ukraine has hoped to sever Russia’s land bridge to Crimea, and U.S. officials are now skeptical that will happen, according to two administration officials familiar with the assessment, the Politico report continues. But there are still hopes in the Pentagon that Ukraine will hamper Russia’s supply lines there, even if a total victory over Russia’s newly fortified troops ends up too difficult to achieve. Moreover, U.S. intelligence indicates that Ukraine simply does not have the ability to push Russian troops from where they were deeply entrenched — and a similar feeling has taken hold about the battlefield elsewhere in Ukraine, according to officials.
“If Ukraine can’t gain dramatically on the battlefield, the question inevitably arises as to whether it is time for a negotiated stop to the fighting,” Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, told Politico. “It’s expensive, we’re running low on munitions, we’ve got other contingencies around the world to prepare for.”
“It’s legitimate to ask all these questions without compromising Ukraine’s goals. It’s simply a question of means,” Haass said.
