Still reeling from last year's failed counteroffensive in Ukraine, the Biden administration is working on a new strategy that deemphasizes retaking territory and instead focuses on helping Ukraine fend off new Russian advances while pursuing the long-term goal of increasing their combat strength and economy.
The emerging plan represents a significant shift from last year, when the U.S. and allied militaries quickly sent training and sophisticated equipment to Kiev in hopes of quickly pushing back Russian troops occupying eastern and southern Ukraine. These efforts failed primarily because of Russia's heavily fortified minefields and frontline trenches.
“It's pretty clear that it will be difficult for them to make the same major push on all fronts that they attempted last year,” a senior administration official said.
The idea now is to position Ukraine so that it can maintain its position on the battlefield for now, but put it on a different path to be much stronger by the end of 2024… and put it on a more sustainable path “said the senior official. one of several who described internal policymaking on condition of anonymity.
Misjudgments and divisions characterized the offensive planning of the USA and Ukraine
The U.S. planning is part of a multilateral effort by nearly three dozen countries supporting Ukraine and assuring long-term security and economic support – both out of necessity given the disappointing results of last year's counteroffensive and the belief that a similar effort this year would probably lead to the same result and serve as evidence of lasting resolve against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Each of them prepares a document setting out its specific commitments for a period of up to a decade. Britain last week published its 10-year agreement with Ukraine, signed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev. It outlined contributions to “maritime security, air, air defense, artillery and armaments,” as well as financial support and access to its financial sector. France is expected to be next and President Emmanuel Macron will pay a visit to Ukraine.
But the success of the strategy depends almost entirely on the United States, by far Ukraine's largest donor of funds and equipment and coordinator of the multilateral effort. This spring, the administration hopes to release its own 10-year commitment, now being put together by the State Department with the blessing of the White House — assuming that President Biden's $61 billion request for additional funding for Ukraine is met by one approved by a recalcitrant Congress.
The shaky ground on which this assumption currently rests – as House Republicans appear to be digging ever deeper into opposing the money – has worried both Western allies and Ukraine itself.
“In the long term, but also at this very important stage, U.S. leadership and commitment are of utmost importance,” a senior European official said. “The addition is a must to keep going… not only locally but also as a sign of Western resolve… to do so [Putin] understand that he will not win.”
“Without US support we would not survive, that is a real fact,” Zelensky said in a television interview last week.
Future-proofing Ukraine against Trump
According to US officials, the American document will guarantee support for short-term military operations as well as the creation of a future Ukrainian military force that can deter Russian aggression. It will contain concrete promises and programs to help protect, restore and expand Ukraine's industrial and export base and support the country in the political reforms necessary for full integration into Western institutions.
Not coincidentally, a U.S. official said, the hope is that the long-term pledge — again assuming congressional approval — will also “future-proof” aid to Ukraine to prevent former President Donald Trump from winning re-election could.
As the White House continues to try to persuade lawmakers, a second senior administration official stressed that the strategy does not mean that the Ukrainians will simply build their own defensive trenches and “sit behind them all year.” “There will still be exchanges of territory” in small towns and villages with minimal strategic value, “missile launches and drones” from both sides and Russian “attacks on civilian infrastructure,” this official said.
Instead of the massive artillery duels that dominated much of the fighting in the second half of 2022 and much of 2023, this is the West's hope For 2024, this means that Ukraine will lose no more territory than a fifth of the land currently occupied by Russia. In addition, Western governments want Kiev to focus on tactics in which its forces have had greater success of late – firing at longer ranges, including with French cruise missiles promised to be delivered in the next few months; the reluctance of the Russian Black Sea Fleet to protect maritime traffic from Ukraine's ports; and tying down Russian forces in Crimea through rocket attacks and special operations sabotage.
Zelensky insists Ukraine remains on the offensive. The plans for 2024 are “not just defense,” he said in a recent video address. “We want our country to retain the initiative, not the enemy.”
But U.S. politicians who recently met privately with him say Zelensky has doubts about how ambitious he will be in the coming year, with no clarity on U.S. aid.
“We are asked what our plan is, but we need to understand what resources we will have,” Ukrainian lawmaker Roman Kostenko said. “At the moment everything indicates that we will have less than last year when we tried to launch a counter-offensive and it didn't work. … If we have even less, it is clear what the plan will be. It will be defense.”
“Nobody ignores offensive measures,” said Serhii Rachmanin, another lawmaker. “But in general … it is very difficult to imagine a serious global strategic offensive in 2024. “Particularly when we look at the overall foreign aid situation, not just the US.”
Even those who believe Ukraine could ultimately defeat Russia acknowledge that 2024 will be tenuous and dangerous. “Most likely there will be no big territorial gains,” Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics said in an interview. “The only strategy is to get as much as possible into Ukraine to, firstly, help them defend their own cities… and secondly, to help them simply not lose ground.”
“Time has taken us a little hostage,” agreed Kusti Salm, State Secretary of the Estonian Ministry of Defense. “It’s just a question of whether we can walk through this valley of death.”
“You have to have something to fight with.”
Along the front line, the Ukrainian military has begun preparations, aiming to replicate Russia's layered defense of trenches and minefields in the southeastern Zaporizhia region that hampered last year's counteroffensive.
“Ordinary soldiers don’t have much interest in it [Ukrainian] Politics and foreign policy,” said a Ukrainian commander in the eastern Donetsk region who was not authorized to speak publicly. “But if you have the feeling that there is not enough, like now with ammunition, mortars and grenades, that immediately causes concern. You can fight, but you have to have something to fight with.”
US politicians believe that the war will ultimately be ended through negotiations. But they also don't believe Putin is serious about the talks this year, in part because he harbors hope that Trump will win back the presidency in November and win back support after Kiev.
Trump, who has long promoted a special relationship with Putin, said months ago that if he returned to the White House he would “settle this war in one day and 24 hours.” Zelensky called that claim “very dangerous” in a television interview last week. and invited Trump to Kiev to tell him what plan he might have.
The long-term strategy to transform Ukraine for the future has its roots in a G-7 declaration of support last summer in which Western leaders pledged to build a “sustainable” military force interoperable with the West and to “economically… “Stability and stability” to strengthen Ukraine's resilience.”
Still, there are political risks if Ukrainians begin to blame their government for the stagnant front lines. Likewise, officials in Western capitals are aware that their citizens' patience with the financing of the war in Ukraine is not infinite.
Amid the planning, Washington also appears to be making the argument that even if Ukraine will not regain all of its territory in the near future, it will need significant ongoing assistance to be able to defend itself and become an integral part of the West.
“We can see what the future of Ukraine can and should look like, regardless of where exactly the borders are drawn,” Blinken said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this month. “And that is a future in which it stands on its own two feet militarily, economically and democratically.”
“No silver bullet” for arming Ukraine
In conversations with lawmakers, administration officials have stressed that only about half of the $61 billion requested would be earmarked for the current battlefield, while the rest would be used to help Ukraine underpin it a secure future without massive Western aid.
According to U.S. officials closely involved in the planning, the U.S. document is being written with four phases in mind: combat, recovery, recovery and reform.
What is needed most for the “combat” phase is “artillery ammunition, some replacements for vehicles” lost in the counteroffensive and “a lot more drones,” said Eric Ciaramella, a former CIA intelligence analyst and now senior Associate in the Russia and Eurasia Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who consulted with administration officials. “A lot of electronic warfare and counter-drone technology – where the Russians have gained an edge. You need more air defense systems to cover more cities.”
Although Ukraine is still eagerly awaiting the promised delivery of fighter jets and other armored vehicles this year, these are “expensive systems with single points of failure,” Ciaramella said. “I think the Ukrainians realized that there is no silver bullet after seeing a million-dollar tank destroyed by a $10,000 mine during the counteroffensive.”
The “build” phase of the strategy focuses on commitments to Ukraine’s future security forces on land, sea and air so that Ukrainians can “see what they will get from the global community over a 10-year period and… “Come out of 2024 with a roadmap to a highly deterrent military,” the first senior administration official said. At the same time, part of the requested additional funds is intended for the expansion of Ukraine's industrial base for weapons production, which, together with the increases of the USA and its allies, can “at least keep pace with Russian” production.
The plan also calls for additional air defenses to create protective “bubbles” around Ukrainian cities beyond Kiev and Odessa and enable the recovery of key parts of Ukraine's economy and exports, including steel and agriculture. Biden appointed former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker as U.S. envoy last fall to lead efforts to rebuild Ukraine's economy and mobilize public and private investment.
Attracting foreign investment back to Ukraine will also require additional efforts to curb corruption, U.S. officials acknowledge. Zelensky has taken some steps, including firing and in some cases arresting allegedly corrupt officials and judges in military procurement; Further initiatives have been called for by the European Union as it considers possible EU membership for Ukraine.
But as talks and planning for the future continue, not every Ukraine supporter believes this is the right time to shift focus from delivering the necessary funds to Ukraine to defeat the Russian as quickly and as quickly as possible this year to confront them as determinedly as possible on the battlefield.
“Whatever strategy you use, you need all the weapons you can think of,” former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said last week during a visit to urge Republican lawmakers to approve funding for Ukraine.
“You can’t win a war by taking an incremental approach,” he said. “You have to surprise and overwhelm your opponent.”
Khurshudyan reported from Kiev and Rauhala from Brussels. Kamila Hrabchuk and Anastacia Galouchka in Kiev contributed to this report.