Planning, material, coordination: Without the USA, little would happen in the Ukraine, and the defensive war against the Russian invasion would probably already have been lost. Behind the scenes, Washington is expecting tangible results from Kiev. Because the support could crumble.
Critical. The situation in Ukraine was like this several times in the first year of the war. When the Russian troops were at the gates of the capital Kiev. When Russia destroyed civilian infrastructure with its artillery shortly before winter in order to break the morale of the population in the bitterly cold winter. And possibly again, if the Russian army with its offensive in the Donbass were to forestall the Ukrainian forces waiting for the tanks of the auxiliary coalition.
The United States has been critical in helping Ukraine hold out for so long. That has to do with the money and weapons that were sent from there to Eastern Europe, but that's not all. The United States coordinates the Alliance of Aiding States. They tend to lead the way in providing assistance, and European countries scuttle behind. The US is also planning in detail the strategy with the Ukrainian leadership. The US military claims its experience and information.
When US President Joe Biden was in Kiev, he and his delegation spent hours conferring with their Ukrainian allies. The Ukrainian head of state Volodymyr Zelenskyj was grateful afterwards. "Our negotiations have been very fruitful, very important and fundamental," he said. "This conversation brings us closer to victory." On February 24, 2022, as the full-scale invasion of his country by the Russian military had begun, he first called the White House. To this day, it is the first point of contact, also for strategic questions. Since the beginning of the year, talks at the highest level have said: The time for success is pressing.
The USA as a single country provided by far the most aid as of February 21: a total of 73.18 billion euros, including 44.34 billion euros for weapons, ammunition and more, as well as 25.11 billion euros in financial aid and 3.72 billion euros in humanitarian aid. Great Britain is behind with total aid worth 8.03 billion euros, Germany with 6.15 billion euros in third place. The EU supported Ukraine with 35 billion euros, bringing the total in aid to 54.9 billion euros.
In absolute numbers, the difference between the individual countries is immense. But not in terms of gross domestic product: Estonia spends more than 1 percent of its economic output, putting it ahead of the other two Baltic states and Poland. The USA follows in 5th place with 0.37 percent, Germany only spends 0.17 percent. Germany is currently trying to get the promised two battalions of Leopard tanks from different countries together. The USA shouldn't have such problems with the delivery of their 31 promised M1 Abrams tanks.
For Ukraine, the close cooperation with the USA means: pressure. Washington wants to see an offensive and results soon, when the first heavy tanks start rolling in April, writes the Washington Post. Several high-ranking members of the government made this clear to those responsible in Kiev in January. CIA boss William Burns informed Zelenskyj about Russia's plans. Decisive successes on the battlefield are to be achieved in the coming months.
This contradicts the "as long as it takes" mantra that US President Joe Biden and other US officials keep repeating, as well as protestations that the United States is preparing for a long war. US representatives recently emphasized this at the Munich Security Conference, as did Biden during his visit to Warsaw.
The warning to the Ukrainian leadership to hurry has political reasons. The Democrat majority in Congress has collapsed and the Republicans have taken control of the House of Representatives. So far, most conservatives have also backed aid to Ukraine, but that doesn't mean it has to or can stay that way. The 2024 US presidential election is fast approaching and no one knows for sure what impact the campaign will have on the public and Congress.
Polls show support for arms sales to Ukraine is declining, especially among Republican voters. Of those, 9 percent told Pew Research in March 2022 that the US was over-supporting Ukraine. In January it was 40 percent. Among all eligible voters, the number increased from 7 to 26 percent. In an AP poll, 29 percent of Americans said they were against arms sales, while 48 percent were in favor. In May 2022 it was still 60 percent.
Americans don't have a good experience of long wars overseas. In Vietnam, between 1964 and 1975, the US fought the communist north for more than a decade, leaving hundreds of thousands of traumatized soldiers and defeat. The "nation building" in Iraq failed, and when the USA withdrew from Afghanistan after 20 years, the Taliban took power again. Everything fell apart again in a few days. In the war in Ukraine, the United States has no "boots on the ground," ie no troops of its own, and it has only been raging for a year. But the experiences of earlier so-called "forever wars" could influence public opinion and thus also the decision-makers in Congress.
"We're trying to convey to them that we can't do everything forever," a senior government official said of the talks with Ukraine, according to the report. Accordingly, Biden's government finds it difficult to imagine that Congress will in future approve aid to a similar extent as before. The US government wants to both appease the Republicans and accelerate the course of the war in Europe as much as possible. In order for the Republicans to continue to vote for aid programs, they must be aware that the Democrats around Biden in Ukraine are pushing for an end to the war in the foreseeable future.
The US and Ukraine do not always seem to agree on the military approach. According to US media, the US military does not consider the city of Bakhmut to be decisive for the war and considers the resources and troops to be better deployed elsewhere. Zelenskyy, on the other hand, does not want to give up the positions that have been hard fought for months because they are symbolic for Ukraine. The Russians pay a heavy toll in blood in the struggle for the city. The Americans, on the other hand, see the success of a spring offensive as more important because it will be decisive for the war.
The goal of the two countries is the same, at least externally: no more Russian troops on the entire territory of Ukraine. That includes Crimea. However, US intelligence services are convinced that the Ukrainian army would need more weapons than they currently have to retake the peninsula. The politicians in the US Congress, who are informed by the secret services about the status of the war and also align their voting behavior accordingly, know all of this. This in turn depends on how comprehensively the USA will continue to help Ukraine in the future.
At least until the end of the summer, when the US estimates that the aid approved by Congress will be exhausted, the US will maintain its role; so that Ukraine can liberate as much of the country as possible before everyone sits down at the table with Russian President Vladimir Putin. That would be an optimistic outcome from the US perspective: Ukraine fends off the Russian offensive, liberates large areas of its own in the south and thus forces Putin to enter into negotiations before the end of the year. Whether this happens depends on the support of the western alliance, what the Russian military does - and what happens then on the battlefields.
