Fuel really isn't a problem there any more, and neither is logistics broadly speaking. They received hundreds of thousands of tons of military support. Supply up to the Ukrainian border of specific weapon systems is, specifically slow political decisions. It seems there is no consensus that Ukraine should decisively win.
And even if they get an Abrams that has half the range they'd take it at this point.
I see that Russia has carved out a nice straight line. A very thin line.
That line carries their supplies.
You're right that things move fast. Gas runs out fast too, when you're running your tanks 24/7. Sure would be a shame if Ukraine's air force blew up the fuel trucks that they're expecting to come refill them.
And you're also right that Ukraine may be losing badly. But that was the default assumption. Everything I've seen in the last day has made me rethink. If the Russians can't even knock out Ukraine's internet, can they really take and hold Kiev?
In the short term, Russia has the military advantage. In the medium term, Ukraine will probably gain the advantage, but it's unclear if it will be sufficient to drive the Russian forces out quickly enough. Because in the long term, Ukrainian economy and infrastructure are collapsing, and they still have something like 35 million civilians to feed.
Fossil fuels are particularly problematic. If Ukraine can't import energy from Russia, Belarus, or over the Black Sea, the only remaining choice is Europe. But Europe is facing a shortage of its own, because most countries are trying to phase out energy imports from Russia. If they can't buy enough for their own needs, they may not share enough with Ukraine.
Most of the weapons provided aren't sufficient to retake territory. The only reason why Ukraine regained the north of Kiev is because Russia packed up and left.
Ukraine has primarily been getting short-range defensive weapons and some drones. You need armor and artillery to mount effective offensives. It's clear so far that while Ukraine can put up a stiff resistance, they aren't as capable of doing the required combined arms assaults that they need to push Russia out.
The Ukrainian air capabilities are attacking the supply line, like the fuel trains on the south. The long column of Russian vehicles outside of Kiev is stuck for several days because logistics. Without fuel it's not going to be anywhere. There're assessments that Russia will run out of supplies to run the war further by this Sunday. At the end the vehicles will likely be just captured.
Western gear like that is very different in terms of maintenance to the Soviet era gear Ukraine has been making use of.
Even if there wasn't some theoretical advantage to prolonging Russia's engagement to bleed them, or the risk of current tech falling into enemy hands, there just isn't the infrastructure in place to keep Abrams etc in the fight. Hell the fuel and ammo difference alone would be a logistical nightmare.
Russia has already been humiliated. The allegedly second strongest army in the world could not defeat a much smaller neighboring country quickly and had to retreat from the proximity of Kyiv and Kharkiv.
They do still have their artillery, though, and they are trying to take Donbass. In a very piecemeal fashion, very slowly. They have learnt something from their spring failures.
The result of this war depends on how fast can the Ukrainians re-arm completely to Western weapons, including artillery. It does not make sense to send tons of heavy Western guns there, if there aren't enough trained soldiers to operate them and enough trained technicians to fix them.
This is the bottleneck, not the raw number of weapons; people tend to treat weapons as magic, but they only work in combination with skilled soldiers and a functioning supply chain.
The Ukrainians are learning fast - people generally learn fast when their country is on fire - but the process will likely take months.
But the Ukrainians seem to have a lot of fight in them, and we are willing and able to support them solo from the US. So, I suspect the fastest path, of the options that the EU can actually pick from, is: maximum support, get it over with.
The west has now had time to create a pipeline, so as long as Ukraine doesn't have to accept a ceasefire it can keep all of Russias troops in a hopeless defense of whatever part of the east they can cover. But at least they won't need as much fuel, right?
The Russians should be more concerned that the longer this goes on the more handheld weapons are going to stockpile in Ukraine. What portion will end up traded or given to groups that want a rematch in Syria, Belarus, Chechnya, ..., even if the Ukraine doesn't decide a policy of destabilizing Russia is the easiest road to short term security?
I doubt it. Ukraine is very well armed at this point. They can resist for a very very long time. If not do better without any further support.
But regardless that’s not the question. Let’s say Russia just rolls a 20 and does far better than is rationally possible, taking Odessa and much of the east rapidly. How does that change the energy situation? Let’s say Russia captures all of Ukraine and gets its genocidal wishes. Does that change anything? Are they really gonna say “well the war is over so let’s resume gas purchases”?
It looks at least very reasonable. It's rarely argued that Russia has a severe disadvantage in conventional armaments compared to the West, or even USA alone; even Russian sources periodically admit that openly. It's also rather clear at this point that the war is the war of attrition, so supplies basically determine the results. West doesn't even need to have particular political will - the robust supplies with armaments will do the trick without anything else. No particular sets of sanctions, no diplomatic masterpieces, no boots on the ground are needed - just enough of supplies to Ukrainian army.
This may be more problematic, though, than a combination of approaches. Which we see today. The combination, though, doesn't provide results particularly fast - it still is good, though, but not enough for reducing the war in time to some relatively short periods starting from now. Well, we're in the real world. It's not perfect.
The problem is not weapons. The problem for Ukraine is they are still a Soviet-tier army, operating with Soviet-era tactics. It's not productive to ship them thousands of Abrams and F-16s if they do not understand how to operate these systems in a combined arms fight. They do not, and it takes a long time to become competent at this. So, a King of Battle war of attrition it is until either Ukraine can figure out how to do this or something truly catastrophic happens with Russian supply and morale. Or NATO directly enters.
They're leveling cities near the areas that they invaded in 2014 which don't require extensive logistics. They're losing in the rest of the country because the Ukrainian military is pretty effective, the Russians are logistically incompetent and can barely maintain air superiority (due largely to the West providing highly effective AA weapons), and Ukraine is a huge country with a very determined populace.
And even if they get an Abrams that has half the range they'd take it at this point.
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