The Ukrainian lieutenant was in firing position on the Eastern Front, commanding an artillery unit relying on M777 howitzers supplied by the Americans and other big guns, as U.S. lawmakers met in Washington to decide whether its guns would be forced to silence for lack of ammunition.
But when the lieutenant returned to his base Saturday evening, he received the news he and millions of Ukrainians had prayed to hear.
“I had just entered the building after a shift change when the guys informed me that the Ukraine aid package had finally been approved by Congress,” said the lieutenant, identified only by his first name, Oleksandar, in accordance with military protocol. . “We hope that this aid will reach us as quickly as possible. »
The decision by U.S. lawmakers to resume military assistance after months of costly delay was greeted with a collective sigh of relief and an outpouring of gratitude in a battered and bloodied Ukraine. It may have been late, soldiers and civilians said, but American support is about more than bullets and bombs.
It offered something just as important: hope.
The 60 billion dollars military assistance program approved by the House is expected to be voted on by the Senate and signed by President Biden as early as Tuesday. The Pentagon said it could resume sending weapons to Ukraine within days thanks to a well-established logistics network.
Some items, such as artillery shells, could begin arriving relatively quickly, but Ukrainian commanders and military analysts have warned that it would be weeks before U.S. aid begins to have a direct impact on the fighting.
“The situation on the front line is therefore likely to continue to deteriorate during this period, particularly if Russian forces intensify their attacks to take advantage of the limited window before the arrival of new American aid,” say analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, an organization in Washington. research group based, written this weekend.
Lt. Oleksandar said the Russians recently appeared determined to pour as many resources into the battle as quickly as possible in order to take advantage of Ukraine’s depleted arsenal.
“The Russians are sparing nothing, neither aerial bombs nor artillery,” he said. “They can fire up to two or three Lancets per day for each of our cannons, while a Lancet costs more than the cannon itself,” he said, referring to one of the drones most sophisticated Russians.
Since US aid stopped flowing to Ukraine this year, Russia has been able to seize more 360 square kilometers, or approximately 139 square miles, of land – an area the size of Philadelphia, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
While Ukraine has been forced to turn to defense, Russia’s arsenal has been bolstered by the delivery of missiles and drones since Iran and North Koreawhile China’s economic support has helped Moscow soften the impact of sanctions, helping the Kremlin reconvert its economy to a wartime basis.
Russia has also managed to replace more than 315,000 troops killed or wounded in combat, according to U.S. officials.
The Russian army is now 15% larger than it was when it invaded Ukraine, General Christopher Cavoli, head of the US command in Europe, said in a statement. testimony to Congress before Saturday’s vote.
“Over the past year, Russia has increased its front-line troops from 360,000 to 470,000 troops,” he said. Ukrainian officials have warned that Russia is preparing the ground for a larger offensive in late spring or early summer.
Although the Russians have so far failed to exploit Ukraine’s deficit in men and weapons to achieve a major breakthrough, military analysts warn that they may still be able to make significant progress in the coming weeks.
Russian forces continue to advance west of the town of Avdiivka, around Lieutenant Oleksandar’s firing position on Saturday. They also bomb the strategically important hilltop fortress of Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine, exploiting growing gaps in Kiev’s exhausted air defenses to obliterate Ukrainian fortifications with powerful one-ton bombs. dropped from combat planes capable of flying ever closer to the front.
If Kremlin forces succeed in seizing vital heights in the region, a conglomeration of the Donbas region’s largest cities still under Ukrainian control would be threatened.
At the same time, Russia continued to hit cities across the country with drone and long-range missile strikes, destroying homes, port infrastructure and energy facilities.
Ukraine’s allies have said they are racing to find more sophisticated air defense systems, like the U.S.-made Patriots, located across Europe to help kyiv, but Ukrainians expect Moscow try to do as much damage as possible before these systems arrive.
As they have done day after day for more than two years, rescuers from Odessa on the Black Sea to Sumy, near Ukraine’s northern border with Russia, rushed to extract people from the rubble from bombed buildings during the House vote Saturday.
“But this day is still a little different,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his address to the nation Saturday evening. “Today we received the long-awaited decision: the American support package that we are fighting so hard for.”
Mr. Zelensky said its impact would soon be felt “both by our warriors on the front lines and by our cities and towns suffering from Russian terror.”
The Kremlin, which U.S. lawmakers say is orchestrating a sophisticated campaign to shape American public opinion and undermine support for Ukraine, responded with a mix of bluster and fury.
Dmitry A. Medvedev, former president and vice chairman of the Kremlin Security Council, issued a statement wishing “in all sincerity” that the United States “plunges as quickly as possible into a new civil war”.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov said military assistance would only contribute to the “ruin” of Ukraine. If provisions of the legislation allowing the United States to seize billions in frozen Russian central bank assets to finance Ukraine’s reconstruction are used, he warned, America “will have to answer for it.” .
Lt. Col. Oleksii Khilchenko, a 30-year-old Ukrainian brigade commander fighting around Robotyne on the southern front, said the new weapons would allow Ukrainians to fight “even more fiercely and with all their courage.”
“This support from American society will save the lives of our soldiers and sustain them across the front lines,” he said. “We will use this aid to strengthen our military and end this war – a war that Russia must lose. »
The House vote also boosted the morale of the volunteer army that helped support Ukrainian soldiers throughout the war.
“A wonderful day today,” said Olena Detsel, founder of the voluntary organization, Three in a canoewhich raises funds to meet the urgent needs of soldiers, including helping those who have lost limbs in combat obtain medical care in America.
“The news of financial support from the United States is like a breath of fresh air,” she said. “It makes us understand that we are not alone in this fight. »
Liubov Sholudko contributed reporting.
