KYIV, Ukraine — After almost 30 months of war with Russia, Ukraine’s difficulties in the war are increasing even as vital support from the United States is increasing in favor of changing political winds.
The six-month suspension of military aid from the US, the single largest contributor to Ukraine, opened the door for Kremlin forces to push on the front lines. Ukrainian forces are now struggling to check the slow but gradual gains by the larger and better equipped Russian army.
“The next two or three months will be the most difficult this year for Ukraine,” military analyst Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment said in a recent podcast.
Lurking in the background is another worry for Ukraine: how long will critical Western political and military support for the war last?
On Monday, former President Donald Trump chose Senator JD Vance from Ohio as his running mate for the Republican ticket in the November US elections, and Vance wants the United States to solve its own problems – not to fight thousands of miles away on a different continent, although he has said that Putin was wrong to attack .
That view is in line with Trump’s own stance. Trump has claimed that if elected, he would end the conflict before Inauguration Day in January. He has refused to say how.
Meanwhile, pro-Russian Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán – whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union – recently angered other EU leaders by holding rogue meetings with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Europe’s biggest war since World War II has claimed tens of thousands of lives on both sides, including thousands of civilians. There is no sign of it ending anytime soon.
And Putin wants to draw a war in the hope of speeding up the West’s willingness to send billions of dollars more to Kyiv.
Here’s a look at Ukraine’s main challenges:
Russia holds 18% of Ukrainian territory, after defense forces were expelled from half of the territory it captured after a full-scale invasion in February 2022, the Council on Foreign Relations, a US think tank, said in May. In 2014, Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea.
The Russians have not won a battlefield victory since capturing the eastern stronghold of Avdiivka in February. But his forces are now pushing in the border areas: Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine, Donetsk in the east and Zaporizhzhia in the south.
To buy time, Ukraine has used an elastic defense strategy by giving up some areas to wear down Russian forces until Western supplies reach the brigade. However, analysts warn, Russia will surely win a long war of attrition, unless Ukraine can attack using the element of surprise.
Russia claimed Sunday that its forces had taken control of the village of Donetsk in Urozhaine, but Ukrainian officials said fighting was still ongoing there. Moscow’s army aims to capture the strategic mountaintop town of Chasiv Yar, which could drive deeper into Donetsk.
Ukrainian forces have largely held off a Russian push northeast of the city of Kharkiv, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank. Kremlin forces have tried to get within artillery range of the city and create a buffer zone in the area to prevent Ukrainian cross-border attacks.
Meanwhile, Russia fired missiles into the rear area, hitting civilian infrastructure. Last week, a massive airstrike killed 31 civilians and hit Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital in Kyiv.
Cutting off Ukraine’s electricity supply has been the primary goal of Russia’s relentless long-range missile and drone attacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the bombardment has destroyed 80% of Ukraine’s thermal power and one-third of its hydroelectric power.
A hard future likely lies ahead for Ukraine, analysts say.
Ukraine is a big country that needs a big air defense to protect everything. The country needs 25 Patriot air defense systems to fully protect its airspace, Zelenskyy said Monday.
The delivery of new ammunition to Ukraine increased to units along the contact line, reducing Kyiv’s losses in artillery shells and allowing it to stabilize the front line.
But it will take time for the Kyiv army to replenish its lost stocks. Ukraine will not be able to mount a counterattack until the end of this year at the earliest, military analysts estimate.
Russia, meanwhile, is spending record sums on defense to fund a war of attrition.
Russia’s tactic is to tear cities and villages to pieces, making them unlivable and denying Ukraine its defenses. A powerful gliding bomb flattens buildings. Then the Russian infantry moved in.
Ukraine has been slow to build its defense line but its fortifications have improved in recent months, according to analyst reports.
The Russian army has advanced rapidly east and south along a front line of about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles), but it has not made a significant breakthrough and its progress has been costly, Ukrainian officials said.
Ukraine in April adopted an expanded conscription law aimed at replenishing depleted and exhausted forces.
Zelenskyy said on Monday the drive was going well, although the country did not have enough training facilities for the new troops. Also, 14 brigades have not received the promised Western weapons.
NATO countries have taken steps this month to ensure that Ukraine continues to receive long-term security assistance and military training.
Alliance leaders attended a summit in Washington last week to sign a deal to deploy more Stinger missiles, a portable surface-to-air defense system.
Ukraine is also preparing to receive the first F-16 fighter jets donated by European countries.
Even so, Zelenskyy is frustrated. He said Ukraine could not win the war unless the US imposed restrictions on the use of weapons to strike military targets on Russian soil.
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Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
