Opinion Ukraine will lose only if MAGA Republicans cut off U.S. aid

[cigaretteman]

In 1940 and 1941, America First isolationists argued that the United States should not help Britain resist the Nazi onslaught because it had no chance to prevail. “I have been forced to the conclusion that we cannot win this war for England, regardless of how much assistance we extend,” Charles Lindbergh said on April 23, 1941.


Today’s America Firsters are voicing a similar refrain when it comes to Ukraine. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said: “I haven’t voted for any money to go to Ukraine because I know they can’t win.” Former president Donald Trump chimed in: “You’re really up against a war machine in Russia. … They defeated Hitler, they defeated Napoleon.” (This vaunted “war machine” lost the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, World War I and the Soviet-Afghan war.) Many of these isolationists make it sound as though they are doing Ukraine a favor by hastening its defeat and occupation. “It doesn’t help the Ukrainian people,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), said recently, “to prolong their suffering in this war.”
Just as the original America Firsters played into Adolf Hitler’s hands, so their ideological descendants play into Vladimir Putin’s. Dictators always want to convey a sense that their triumph is inevitable and that resistance is futile. Indeed, the MAGA Republicans sound indistinguishable from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said last year that Western aid deliveries “will not change anything” and “can only prolong the suffering of the Ukrainian people.”



Yet Ukraine has proved the naysayers wrong for more than two years and it can continue to do so as long as it receives aid from the United States. But if U.S. aid is cut off, as the MAGA Republicans demand, then their predictions of doom might become a self-fulfilling prophecy.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...c_magnet-oprussiaukraine_inline_collection_20

It’s worth recalling that few analysts gave Ukraine any chance of successfully repelling the initial Russian onslaught which began on Feb. 24, 2022. The U.S. intelligence community feared that Kyiv could fall within 72 hours. Yet here we are 740 days later, as of Monday, and the Ukrainian state is, in many ways, stronger than it was before the war, with a far larger and more capable military, a more popular leader, and a far more united populace.


Ukrainian nationalism has been turbocharged by the Russian assault, and Ukrainians remain nearly unanimous in their desire to fight the invaders. In one recent poll, 89 percent of Ukrainians said they are still convinced they will win the war.



As I saw on a trip around the country last month, much of Ukraine continues to function remarkably well despite the war. In major cities, grocery store shelves are stocked, restaurants are packed and streets are full of traffic. There have been no major shortages of heat or electricity this winter despite Russian attacks. The blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast has been broken, with Russia’s Black Sea Fleet losing roughly one-third of its ships. Ukrainian grain exports from Odessa are almost back to prewar volumes.
Putin’s goal was to snuff out Ukraine’s independence. So far, he has failed miserably. So, too, his gambit of cutting off Russian natural gas to Europe failed to cow the continent. The war has actually strengthened NATO, with Sweden and Finland joining the alliance and member states boosting their defense spending.
The Russians have managed to increase the amount of Ukrainian territory they control from 7 percent to 18 percent — but at frightful cost. The U.S. intelligence community estimates that Russia has lost more than 315,000 soldiers killed and wounded, its worst casualty figures since World War II. The Estonian intelligence service calculates that the Russians have lost “over 2,600 tanks, 5,100 armored personnel carriers and 600 self-propelled artillery units.” Two-thirds of Russia’s prewar tank inventory has been destroyed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/04/ukraine-survival-war-united-states-aid-russia/

 

[cigaretteman]

The bad news is that, despite Western sanctions, Russia’s economy continues to function, and it has been put on a wartime footing to churn out more weapons systems. But even so, Russia is expending munitions faster than it can manufacture them. The Kremlin has had to deplete Soviet-era stockpiles and buy artillery shells from North Korea and drones and missiles from Iran.
It’s also dismaying that Putin’s hold on power has not been shaken by the needless loss of so many soldiers in meat-grinder assaults. Indeed, following the deaths of mercenary leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin and opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the Russian dictator appears more firmly entrenched than ever.
The final bit of negative news is that the Russian military’s combat performance has improved since the early days of the war. The Russian army has greatly increased its drone and electronic warfare capabilities, in particular. Ukraine’s counteroffensive failed to break through heavily fortified Russian lines last year, and, in mid-February, the Russians took Avdiivka — their biggest victory since the fall of Bakhmut in May 2023.



The Russian success in Avdiivka was possible because, with U.S. aid already cut off, the Ukrainians are suffering from an acute shortage of artillery shells. If U.S. aid doesn’t restart and ammunition shortages worsen, the Russians can break through elsewhere along the 600-mile front and rain down air attacks on Ukrainian cities. That could eventually lead to Ukraine’s defeat.
But if U.S. aid resumes, Ukraine could continue to hold out indefinitely, and Russia will find it extremely difficult to advance. As long as Russia cannot substantially expand its zone of occupation — and Ukraine remains a functioning, pro-Western state — I would consider that a victory for Ukraine. Ukraine might even be able to claw back more of its lost territory next year if the West provides more long-range-strike weapons (such as American-made ATACMS) to target Russian bases in Crimea. Ukraine should receive a boost when it takes delivery of its first F-16 fighter jets this summer.
Yes, Russia is a large country — much larger than Ukraine — but it does not have infinite stocks of men and materiel. Russia is most amply supplied with young men who could become cannon fodder, and Ukraine needs to increase its own conscription to keep pace. But, since mobilizing 300,000 fighters in the fall of 2022, Putin has been careful not to expand the draft for fear of popular pushback.



Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute in London, writing for Time magazine, notes that “Russia’s firepower dominance will potentially diminish” in 2025 as it runs low on ammunition stockpiles. In a similar vein, a senior Biden administration official told the New Yorker that “Russia can continue its current level of war expenditures into the spring of 2025, at which point it will run into trouble.” Meanwhile, the United States and Europe are expanding their defense production; next year, they might be able to produce twice as many artillery shells as Russia.
If those estimates are accurate, then Ukraine just has to survive this year before the tide might start to turn again. “Ukraine’s prospects are grim but hardly fatal,” retired Australian major general Mick Ryan told me. “There were multiple occasions when the allies faced such terrible prospects in World War II. They won not just through perseverance and production, but with an alliance strategy to defeat their enemy, not just defend against them. Such is Ukraine’s pathway to victory. Russia is a relatively weak bully — and very beatable. We just have to decide to do it.”
Whether Ukraine wins or loses will be decided not on the battlefield but in the House of Representatives, where a Senate-approved $60 billion aid bill continues to languish. There is nothing inevitable about Ukraine’s defeat, any more than there was anything inevitable about Britain’s defeat in World War II. But, despite Ukraine’s impressive and inspirational record of resistance thus far, it can still lose this war if MAGA Republicans succeed in cutting off U.S. aid.

 

[LuciousBDragon]

We should at least stop and ask ourselves how we got to where one country is dependent upon a minority of another country’s voters half a world away?

 

[ottumwan in tx]

they lost already... money going over there ends up in biden's pocket so hunter can buy drugs