Chris

Ukraine has taken more territory in 6 weeks than Russia did in as many months, and is presently destroying Russian hardware and personnel at a prodigious rate. They briefly attempted a rapid manoeuvre at the outset of their counter offensive, however as the US has denied them air power they actually can’t use much of the equipment or tactics they have been taught in Nato countries over the past several months. To draw a parallel, the US and allies air-raided Iraq for six weeks straight before invading. Ukraine rapidly realised it, too, would have to degrade Russian defences and without air power they have had to do that with stand-off weapons. These are principally US-suppled HIMARS artillery missiles, British Storm Shadow cruise missiles, and increasingly drone-spotted artillery and some of their own Soviet era air defence rockets repurposed for long range ground attack.

The modified S-200 missiles are an interesting point in their own right, as they have the range to hit targets inside Russia, and there is evidence they have been used to do that. Over the past 48 hours Ukraine have also assaulted both the Sevastopol naval base and the Kerch bridge using naval drones of their own design. The Ukrainians are using their own ingenuity to fill the capability gaps in their Nato weaponry (the gap mainly being long range strike capability). Some very clever people in Washington have been trying to deny Ukraine such ability because they feared escalation. All they have actually achieved is to prompt Ukraine to develop capabilities the US can’t control at all. Which further gives the lie to Trump’s fantasy that he could stop this by picking up the phone.

Ukraine (rightly) believes it is in an existential conflict and most East European states agree and see themselves under long-term threat, a sense that will only be heightened if any future American administration goes cool on supporting Ukraine. It has no motivation to fight for anything less than what international law says its territory is, and it is unlikely its European allies are going to stop helping it to achieve that.