Delayed Package: The delay in US military aid has brought the Kremlin closer to winning a war of attrition

July fireworks and a trap for Biden

The six-month delay in passing the Ukraine aid package in the US Congress, caused by Republicans and Donald Trump, has largely achieved its goals. Russian forces have seized the initiative on the battlefield and are likely to make significant tactical gains in the near future, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). One of the Russian army's immediate goals may be to capture the village of Chasiv Yar, which is strategically important for a major Russian offensive, which analysts expect to begin in May and June. Russia's strikes on major Ukrainian cities — Kharkiv and Odesa — and energy infrastructure are intended to have a psychological impact, further suppressing the Ukrainians' will to resist.

If the Russian offensive begins in mid-May and is sufficiently successful, it will culminate in early July, just in time for the 50th anniversary NATO summit in Washington, notes Atlantic Council expert Andrew Michta. This would be a humiliating moment demonstrating to the world that NATO's might is a thing of the past, and it would also clearly confirm the failure of the Biden administration's Ukraine strategy. Biden would also go down in history as the president who began his presidency by withdrawing from Afghanistan and ended it by withdrawing from Ukraine. It is highly likely that President Putin will spare no expense in striving to achieve this 'historic' effect.

This presents the Biden administration with a difficult dilemma, argues Andrew Michta. Fear of escalation by Moscow has forced Biden to take a cautious approach and provide limited military support to Kyiv, which has been able to counter Russian forces but has not yet been able to achieve a decisive breakthrough. As a result, Ukraine's military, psychological, and human resources are on the brink of exhaustion, and Russia is winning the war of attrition. To maintain his chances of winning the presidential election, Biden needs to escape this trap and dramatically increase the quality and quantity of military support for Ukraine.

However, the aid package that has been approved leaves little room for this.

Big little package

The approved package of almost $61 billion is likely to be the last, at least until the US presidential election in November, Defence One reports. The Financial Times' spoke to analysts at the Frontelligence Insight project who also believe that Kyiv will not receive any more US aid this year, and that any subsequent packages will be smaller in size. 

Although the current package surpasses in absolute terms all the support allocated by Washington to Kyiv since the start of the invasion, at best only a quarter of this sum will reach the front, security analyst and Insider columnist Colby Badhwar points out. The lion's share of the package will be used to replenish the stockpile of weapons in US warehouses, long-term weapons production programmes at US factories and other similar purposes, while the actual military aid to Ukraine will amount to only $15.8 billion, i.e. about 26% of the amount approved by Congress. The actual amount of funds that Ukraine will receive in military aid this year may be even less. To date, the Biden administration has announced the dispatch of two military aid packages to Ukraine — valued at $1 billion and $6 billion. The latter includes various munitions, including artillery shells, missiles for Patriot and HIMARS systems, as well as radars and drones.

Nevertheless, as noted by Atlantic Council expert Peter Dickinson in his commentary, the new military aid package still does not give Kyiv the quantity and quality of weapons necessary for a decisive breakthrough in the war. This trend has been evident since the beginning of the Russian invasion and is determined by Western fears that the threat of defeat could push Putin towards the path of nuclear escalation. 

Urgent tasks and the issue of cost efficiency

Given the unreliability of future supplies, Kyiv must make the most efficient use of the allocated aid, writes The Washington Post. This includes, among other things, using the long-range ATACMS missiles included in the new package to strike occupied territories, including airfields, supply depots, military positions and decision-making centres. Skillful use of the incoming aid will allow Kyiv to hold its defences in 2024, deplete Russian forces, and rebuild civil defence capabilities, writes Max Bermann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

One of the most urgent tasks is to develop a long-term air defence strategy. The effectiveness of air defence assets must discourage Russian strikes on civilian infrastructure. This is not only a question of the number of air defence assets, but also their cost as effective air defence assets are extremely expensive: the price of a Patriot battery is $1.27 billion, according to a Congressional Research Service commentary, and a single interceptor missile for the system costs $4 million. To reduce costs, Ukraine could use NASAMS systems instead of Patriots, the cost of a shot from one of these is about $1.37 million, Defence One highlights. Another solution to the problem is to expand the use of the FrankenSAM concept, which involves combining Soviet-made air defence systems with comparatively cheap American missiles. There are currently three variations of this system: the Buk SAM system that fires Sea Sparrow missiles, the Osa system that uses Sidewinder missiles, and a hybrid system that combines batteries and Patriot missiles with Soviet-made radars. The latter system has the longest range (up to 150 kilometres), while the Buk and Osa-based systems are capable of destroying targets up to 15 kilometres away.

Is it possible to achieve a breakthrough in the war of attrition in favour of Ukraine?

The loss of armoured vehicles in the Russian army is so significant that even at the front, it has to rely on civilian vehicles, writes Max Berman in a report for CSIS. The depletion of Russia's arsenal will accelerate even more noticeably when Russia moves to the expected large-scale offensive. Despite Russian forces firing at least 7-10 shells for every one fired by the Ukrainian armed forces, Russia's stockpile of artillery ammunition is also running out, The Financial Times notes. While Russian artillery fire rates were averaging 60,000 shells per day until autumn 2022, that figure has now dropped to around 10,000, including ammunition that has come from North Korea and Iran. 

Russia's domestic production of shells has not kept up with the pace of fighting. According to a large CSIS analytical report, to maintain the current intensity of firing on the battlefield, Russia must produce 3.6 million shells per year; yet, according to the Russian Ministry of Defence, the Russian military-industrial complex is not capable of producing more than half of this amount. The high rate of fire also leads to significant wear and tear on artillery barrels, which the Russian army has thus far managed to replenish with Soviet stocks. 

In contrast, the military capabilities of Ukraine's allies are growing, notes The Economist. The annual output of PAC-3 interceptor missiles, which are used by Patriot systems, should increase by 20% next year, while the annual production of shells should rise to 1.2 million in the US and 2 million in Europe. If Kyiv can use this year to deplete the Russian army’s capabilities, it will create an opportunity for a breakthrough by the Ukrainian armed forces in 2025, Max Bermann concludes.

The US package alone will not solve the problems of achieving resource parity in the war of attrition. Russia is spending approximately 7% of its GDP on the war, and possibly more. In addition to the US, European allies should step up their assistance to Ukraine, but they are no less constrained than America in allocating additional funds to finance the war. A possible solution to the problem is the creation of a $100 billion Ukraine Defence Support Fund, which NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg discussed during a surprise visit to Kyiv this week. This initiative was previously proposed by Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market (→ Re:Russia: Paper Defence), but the mechanism for financing this has not yet been worked out. Bloomberg experts believe that the solution may be a bond programme for private investors to be launched by the EU.

It can be said that the effectiveness of the American package will largely determine whether a corresponding initiative from Europe follows. Achieving a breakthrough in the war of attrition is possible only through joint efforts on both sides of the Atlantic.

The big question: will Ukraine continue to fight?

In any case, arms supplies to Ukraine will increase significantly in the near future and may even reach a fundamentally new level. However, the decisive factor in the coming weeks and months will be not so much ammunition and air defence equipment, but rather Ukraine's ability to mobilise and train enough troops capable of fighting. Konrad Muzyka, a well-known OSINT analyst and head of the Polish think tank Rochan Consulting, calls the current situation on the front the most difficult for the Ukrainian armed forces since the beginning of the Russian invasion. According to Muzyka, the shortage of military personnel will strongly affect the situation on the front for the next three to four months, especially considering that the Ukrainians have clearly been late in building fortifications in the rear.

Ukraine is now in the position that Russia found itself in by the end of summer 2022, when it failed to make timely decisions regarding replenishment of manpower, and the morale of the remaining troops deteriorated. In April, Ukraine's president signed a law on lowering the mobilisation age with a delay of several months, while the Verkhovna Rada tightened the law on mobilisation. The new draft will begin in Ukraine on 18 May. This should allow Ukraine to mobilise about 300,000 servicemen by June, according to Volodymyr Zelensky. 

However, a survey conducted by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation at the end of March showed that a quarter of Ukrainians would like to avoid mobilisation, and only 10% of those surveyed said that their acquaintances were ready to go to the front. The desire to avoid mobilisation is most widespread in the eastern regions of the country (39% of respondents said that most of their acquaintances do not want to be drafted), in the south of the country this share is 32%, in the west it is 29%, and in the central region it is just 15%. 

At the same time, as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Christopher Cavoli, said at a Senate hearing in April, Russia is recruiting 30,000 volunteers a month and has already increased the number of troops in Ukraine to 470,000. However, the problem here is not so much the size of the population of the two countries. Russian forced-commercial recruitment resources are also limited. The critical issue is the psychological mood in society and in the army. In this regard, the six-month delay in the delivery of American weapons has played a huge role: the need to withstand the enemy under conditions of a critical shortage of weapons and, above all, shells has dealt a powerful blow to the morale of Ukrainian troops ahead of a powerful offensive planned by the enemy. The coming weeks will demonstrate whether the Ukrainians will be able to cope with this problem. But it is clear that today Ukraine desperately needs "good news."