Yesterday the Pentagon announced another transfer of weapons to the Ukrainian military:
According to the Pentagon, the package includes:Additional munitions for NASMAS
150 heavy machine guns with thermal imagery sights to counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)
Additional ammunition for HIMARS
200 precision-guided 155mm artillery rounds
10,000 120mm mortar rounds
High-speed Anti-radiation missiles (HARMs)
150 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs)
Over 100 light tactical vehicles
Over 20,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition
Over 200 generators
Spare parts for 105mm Howitzers and other equipmentThe $400 million is being sent to Ukraine through the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows President Biden to send arms straight from US military stockpiles.
The Pentagon is clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Russia expert Gordon M. Hahn looks at the upcoming Russian Winter Offensive. Only with a ceasefire can Ukraine and its sponsors avert the upcoming catastrophe. This for three reasons:
First, the Russian hammer is about to fall on Ukraine. The gloves are coming off; electric energy stations, bridges, and even ‘decision centers’ such as central Kiev’s government buildings are being targeted. … What will the sociopolitical situation be like when these critical infrastructures are in complete collapse and temperatures are 20 degrees colder? Russia will be moving closer to the strategy of ‘shock and awe’, fully destroying all infrastructure – military or otherwise – as the US did in Serbia and Iraq and will likely take less care now to avoid civilian casualties.After the infrastructures are completely destroyed or incapacitated, Russia’s reinforcements of 380,000 regular and newly mobilized troops will have been fully added into Russia’s forces across southeastern Ukraine. … A winter offensive by some half a million troops will make substantial gains on those three fronts and multiply Ukrainian losses in personnel and materiel`, which are already high. This could lead easily to a collapse of Ukrainian forces on one or more front. On the backs of such a success Russian President Putin might also make another attempt to threaten Kiev …
Second, the West is suffering from Ukraine fatigue. NATO countries’ arms supplies have been depleted beyond what is tolerable, and social cohesion is collapsing in the face of double-digit inflation and economic recession. All this makes Russia the winner on the strategic level and is forcing Washington and Brussels to seek at least a breathing spell by way of a ceasefire.
Third, Ukraine’s greatest political asset – Zelenskiy himself – just got devalued, putting at even greater risk Ukraine’s political stability. …
On the background of the deteriorating battlefield and international strategic situation, such civil-military tensions are fraught with the potential for a coup. …
Reading the two pieces quoted above I come to the conclusion war has been lost – by Ukraine as well as by its supporters.
NATO, already deeply involved, could still want to change that by fully joining the war. But I do not think that the U.S. military, nor its European NATO allies, will have the stomach for that.
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