The grinding war between Ukraine and its Russian invaders has escalated ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration, with President Joe Biden rushing out billions of dollars more in military aid before US support for Kyiv’s defenses is thrown into question under the new administration.
Russia, Ukraine and their global allies are scrambling to put their side in the best possible position for any changes that Trump may bring to American policy in the nearly three-year-old war. The president-elect insisted in recent days that Russia and Ukraine immediately reach a ceasefire and said Ukraine should probably prepare to receive less US military aid.
On the war’s frontlines, Ukraine’s forces are mindful of Trump’s fast-approaching presidency and the risk of losing their biggest backer.
If that happens, “those people who are with me, my unit, we are not going to retreat”, a Ukrainian strike-drone company commander, fighting in Russia’s Kursk region with the 47th Brigade, told the Associated Press by phone.
“As long as we have ammunition, as long as we have weapons, as long as we have some means to defeat the enemy, we will fight,” said the commander, who goes by his military call sign, Hummer. He spoke on condition he not be identified by name, citing Ukrainian military rules and security concerns.
“But, when all means run out, you must understand, we will be destroyed very quickly,” he said.
The Biden administration is pushing every available dollar out the door to shore up Ukraine’s defenses before leaving office in six weeks, announcing more than $2bn in additional support since Trump won the presidential election last month.
The US has sent a total of $62bn in military aid since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. And more help is on the way.
The treasury department said on Tuesday it would disburse $20bn – the US portion of a $50bn multinational loan to Ukraine, backed by Russia’s frozen central bank assets – before Biden leaves the White House. The treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said the funds “will provide Ukraine a critical infusion of support”. And the state department said on Tuesday it had approved the sale of a $266m package to help Ukraine with the long-term operation and maintenance of F-16 fighter aircraft from the US and other allies.
Biden has also eased limits on Ukraine using American longer-range missiles against military targets deeper inside Russia, following months of refusing those appeals over fears of provoking Russia into nuclear war or attacks on the west. He has also newly allowed Ukraine to employ antipersonnel mines, which are banned by many countries.
Biden and his senior advisers, however, are skeptical that allowing freer use of longer-range missiles will change the broader trajectory of the war, according to two senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
But the administration has at least a measure of confidence that its scramble, combined with continued strong European support, means it will leave office having given Ukraine the tools it needs to sustain its fight for some time, the officials said.
Enough to hold on, but not enough to defeat President Vladimir Putin’s Russian forces, according to Ukraine and some of its allies.
Even now, “the Biden administration has been very careful not to run up against the possibility of a defeated Putin or a defeated Russia” for fear of the tumult that could bring, said retired general Philip Breedlove, a former supreme allied commander of Nato. He is critical of Biden’s cautious pace of military support for Ukraine.
Events far from the frontlines this past weekend demonstrated the war’s impact on Russia’s military.
In Syria, rebels seized the capital and toppled the Russia-allied president, Bashar Assad. Russian forces in Syria had propped up Assad for years, but they moved out of the way of the rebels’ assault, unwilling to take losses to defend their ally.
Biden said it was further evidence that US support for Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was wearing down Russia’s military.
Trump, who has long spoken favorably of Putin and described Zelenskyy as a “showman” wheedling money from the US, used that moment to call for an immediate ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia.
And asked in a TV interview – taped before he met with Zelenskyy over the weekend in Paris – if Ukraine should prepare for the possibility of reduced aid, Trump said, “Yeah. Probably. Sure.”
Trump’s supporters call that pre-negotiation maneuvering by an avowed deal-maker. His critics say they fear it shows he is in Putin’s sway.
Zelenskyy said on Monday that Russian forces’ retrenchment from outposts worldwide demonstrates that “the entire army of this great pseudo-empire is fighting against the Ukrainian people today”.
“Forcing Putin to end the war requires Ukraine to be strong on the battlefield before it can be strong diplomatically,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media, repeating near-daily appeals for more longer-range missiles from the US and Europe.
In Kursk, Hummer, the Ukrainian commander, said he noticed Russian artillery strikes and shelling easing up since the US and its European allies loosened limits on the use of longer-range missiles.
But Moscow has been escalating its offensives in other ways in the past six months, burning through men and materiel in infantry assaults and other attacks far faster than it can replace them, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
In Kursk, that includes Russia sending waves of soldiers on motorcycles and golf carts to storm Ukrainian positions, Hummer said. The Ukrainian drone commander and his comrades defend the ground they have seized from Russia with firearms, tanks and armored vehicles provided by the US and other allies.
Ukraine’s supporters fear that the kind of immediate ceasefire Trump is urging would be mostly on Putin’s terms and allow the Russian leader to resume the war when his military has recovered.
