WASHINGTON: The grinding war between Ukraine and its Russian invaders has escalated ahead of Donald Trump\u2019s inauguration, with President Joe Biden rushing out billions of dollars more in military aid before US support for Kyiv\u2019s defenses is thrown into question under the new administration.
\nRussia, Ukraine and their global allies are scrambling to put their side in the best possible position for any changes that Trump may bring to American policy in the nearly 3-year-old war. The president-elect insisted in recent days that Russia and Ukraine immediately reach a ceasefire and said Ukraine should likely prepare to receive less US military aid.
\nOn the war\u2019s front lines, Ukraine\u2019s forces are mindful of Trump\u2019s fast-approaching presidency and the risk of losing their biggest backer.
\nIf that happens, \u201cthose people who are with me, my unit, we are not going to retreat,\u201d a Ukrainian strike-drone company commander, fighting in Russia\u2019s Kursk region with the 47th Brigade, told The Associated Press by phone.
\n\u201cAs long as we have ammunition, as long as we have weapons, as long as we have some means to defeat the enemy, we will fight,\u201d said the commander, who goes by his military call sign, Hummer. He spoke on condition he not be identified by name, citing Ukrainian military rules and security concerns.
\n\u201cBut, when all means run out, you must understand, we will be destroyed very quickly,\u201d he said.
\nThe Biden administration is pushing every available dollar out the door to shore up Ukraine\u2019s defenses before leaving office in six weeks, announcing more than $2 billion in additional support since Trump won the presidential election last month.
\nThe US has sent a total of $62 billion in military aid since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. And more help is on the way.
\nThe administration is on track to disperse the US portion of a $50 billion loan to Ukraine, backed by frozen Russian assets, before Biden leaves the White House, US officials said. They said the US and Ukraine are in \u201cadvanced stages\u201d of discussing terms of the loan and close to executing the $20 billion of the larger loan that the US is backing.
\nBiden also has eased limits on Ukraine using American longer-range missiles against military targets deeper inside Russia, following months of refusing those appeals over fears of provoking Russia into nuclear war or attacks on the West. He\u2019s also newly allowed Ukraine to employ antipersonnel mines, which are banned by many countries.
\nBiden and his senior advisers, however, are skeptical that allowing freer use of the longer-range missiles will change the broader trajectory of the war, according to two senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
\nBut the administration has at least a measure of confidence that its scramble, combined with continued strong European support, means it will leave office having given Ukraine the tools it needs to sustain its fight against Russia for some time, the officials said.
\nEnough to hold on, but not enough to defeat Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s forces, according to Ukraine and some of its allies.
\nEven now, \u201cthe Biden administration has been very careful not to run up against the possibility of a defeated Putin or a defeated Russia\u201d for fear of the tumult that could bring, said retired Gen. Philip Breedlove, a former supreme allied commander of NATO. He is critical of Biden\u2019s cautious pace of military support for Ukraine.
\nEvents far from the front lines this past weekend demonstrated the war\u2019s impact on Russia\u2019s military.
\nIn Syria, rebels seized the country\u2019s capital and toppled Russia-allied President Bashar Assad. Russian forces in Syria had propped up Assad for years, but they moved out of the way of the rebels\u2019 assault, unwilling to take losses to defend their ally.
\nBiden said it was further evidence that US support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was wearing down Russia\u2019s military.
\nTrump, who has long spoken favorably of Putin and described Zelensky as a \u201cshowman\u201d wheedling money from the US, used that moment to call for an immediate ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia.
\nAnd asked in a TV interview \u2014 taped before he met with Zelensky over the weekend in Paris \u2014 if Ukraine should prepare for the possibility of reduced aid, Trump said, \u201cYeah. Probably. Sure.\u201d
\nTrump\u2019s supporters call that pre-negotiation maneuvering by an avowed deal-maker. His critics say they fear it shows he is in Putin\u2019s sway.
\nZelensky said Monday that Russian forces\u2019 retrenchment from outposts worldwide demonstrates that \u201cthe entire army of this great pseudo-empire is fighting against the Ukrainian people today.\u201d
\n\u201cForcing Putin to end the war requires Ukraine to be strong on the battlefield before it can be strong diplomatically,\u201d Zelensky wrote on social media, repeating near-daily appeals for more longer-range missiles from the US and Europe.
\nIn Kursk, Hummer, the Ukrainian commander, said he notices Russian artillery strikes and shelling easing up since the US and its European allies loosened limits on use of longer-range missiles.
\nBut Moscow has been escalating its offensives in other ways in the past six months, burning through men and materiel in infantry assaults and other attacks far faster than it can replace them, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
\nIn Kursk, that includes Russia sending waves of soldiers on motorcycles and golf carts to storm Ukrainian positions, Hummer said. The Ukrainian drone commander and his comrades defend the ground they have seized from Russia with firearms, tanks and armored vehicles provided by the US and other allies.
\nUkraine\u2019s supporters fear that the kind of immediate ceasefire Trump is urging would be mostly on Putin\u2019s terms and allow the Russian leader to resume the war when his military has recovered.
\n\u201cPutin is sacrificing his own soldiers at a grotesque rate to take whatever territory he can on the assumption that the US will tell Ukraine that US aid is over unless Russia gets to keep what it has taken,\u201d Phillips O\u2019Brien, a professor of strategic studies at Scotland\u2019s University of St. Andrews, wrote on his Substack channel.
\nPutin\u2019s need for troops led him to bring in North Korean forces. Biden\u2019s decision to allow Ukraine to use longer-range missiles more broadly in Russia was partly in response, intended to discourage North Korea from deeper involvement in the war, one of the senior administration officials said.
\nSince 2022, Russia already had been pulling forces and other military assets from Syria, Central Asia and elsewhere to throw into the Ukraine fight, said George Burros, an expert on the Russia-Ukraine conflict at the Institute for the Study of War.
\nAny combat power that Russia has left in Syria that it could deploy to Ukraine is unlikely to change battlefield momentum, Burros said.
\n\u201cThe Kremlin has prioritized Ukraine as much as it can,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: The grinding war between Ukraine and its Russian invaders has escalated ahead of Donald Trump\u2019s inauguration, with President Joe Biden rushing out billions of dollars more in military aid before US support for Kyiv\u2019s defenses is thrown into question under the new administration. Russia, Ukraine and their global allies are scrambling to put their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448487,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-448473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n