Pentagon Skirts Ukraine Counteroffensive Question

The U.S. appears reluctant to comment on the progress of the Ukrainian counteroffensive it is committed to supporting, as questions swirl over the fate of Ukrainian forces throughout the winter and over congressional backing for new aid for Kyiv.

The Ukrainian fighters battling against Russia's dug-in defenses in the south and the east of the war-torn country "continue to be in a very hard fight," the Pentagon press secretary, Major General Pat Ryder, told reporters during a media briefing on Monday.

"Ukraine is making some advances and the Russians are making advances," Ryder added.

Ukraine has made a few gains along the largely-static front lines since it launched its summer counteroffensive in early June, reclaiming a smattering of villages and glimpsing a dose of triumph around the decimated southern village of Robotyne.

But the pace of the concerted push has largely failed to meet Western and Ukrainian hopes, falling short of producing swathes of reclaimed territory in the style of Kyiv's 2022 counteroffensive. It has also raised increasingly worrying questions for Ukraine over how long the U.S.—the country contributing the most military aid to Kyiv—will keep up the vital flow of weapons and support for the war effort.

To Kyiv's dismay, Russia has also made creeping advances around the Donetsk town of Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold that has spent nearly a decade on the front lines and that would mark a significant tactical and symbolic victory for Russia if its forces succeeded in taking it.

Ukraine was quick to temper expectations. In early July, just weeks after the beginning of counteroffensive operations, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN that Kyiv had wanted the push to "happen much earlier."

"We give our enemy the time and possibility to place more mines and prepare their defensive lines," he said at the time, via a translator.

"We wanted faster results," Zelensky reflected months later, speaking during an interview with the Associated Press in early December. "From that perspective, unfortunately, we did not achieve the desired results."

When prodded on specifics of how the U.S. assessed the Ukrainian counteroffensive to be going on Monday, Ryder told the media that it was up to Kyiv to "define what they're trying to achieve."

Russia invaded more than a year and a half ago, and Ukraine "continues to hold the line, they've taken back upwards of 50 percent of the territory that had been occupied," Ryder said.

Ryder's comments closely echo remarks from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking in July in the "relatively early days of the counteroffensive." Ukraine had already reclaimed around half of the territory initially seized by Russia, Blinken said then.

But little has changed in the months since, although Kyiv took control of a handful of frontline villages as summer months turned to fall. Now, Russia and Ukraine are both staring down the full force of the winter months, and the pressures of keeping up mechanized operations, artillery fire and ammunition supplies while Ukraine fends off increased Russian drone and missile strikes.

"A winter war is difficult," Zelensky said at the start of December. "Winter as a whole is a new phase of war."

Helping the Ukrainians to trudge through the winter, reclaiming territory through December and in the new year is the U.S.'s priority, Ryder added on Monday.

Washington is going to "stay focused" on Kyiv's military requirements, Ryder said, both for the short-term goals of peeling back Russian-held territory along the front lines and Ukraine's long-term security needs. This could be armor, artillery, air defense systems or IT support, Ryder said.

Ryder then nodded to remarks from U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier this month, in which Austin said the U.S. hoped to support a "free and sovereign Ukraine that can defend itself today—and deter more Russian aggression in the future."

But Monday's news conference ended abruptly, without further indicators of how the U.S. evaluates Ukraine's progress, and what the new year will herald for Kyiv.

Newsweek has reached out to the Pentagon for comment via email.

Maintaining the stream of aid is likely to be at the top of Zelensky's agenda as he visits U.S. lawmakers this week.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his "sick clique" benefit from "unresolved issues on Capitol Hill," Zelensky said during a speech at the U.S. National Defense University on Monday.

The White House said on Sunday that Zelensky would visit the White House on Tuesday in a demonstration of the U.S.'s "unshakeable commitment to supporting the people of Ukraine as they defend themselves against Russia's brutal invasion."

But resistance to unfettered support for Ukraine is visible in Congress, with aid packages stripped from emergency government funding bills and getting stuck in Congress.

Republicans in Congress are blocking a $110 billion funding bill, that includes around $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, because they want tighter security measures at the U.S. southern border.

The White House also warned earlier this month that "without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from U.S. military stocks."

"Cutting off the flow of U.S. weapons and equipment will kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield," the White House's budgeting head, Shalanda Young, said in a letter to Congress on December 4.

"There is no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment. We are out of money—and nearly out of time," Young wrote.