American military and intelligence officials have concluded that the war in Ukraine is no longer a stalemate as Russia makes steady gains, and the sense of pessimism in Kyiv and Washington is deepening.
The dip in morale and questions about whether American support will continue pose their own threat to Ukraine’s war effort. Ukraine is losing territory in the east, and its forces inside Russia have been partially pushed back.
The Ukrainian military is struggling to recruit soldiers and equip new units. The number of its soldiers killed in action, about 57,000, is half of Russia’s losses but still significant for the much smaller country.
Russia’s shortages of soldiers and supplies have also grown worse, Western officials and other experts said. And its gains in the war have come at great cost.
If U.S. support for Ukraine remains strong until next summer, Kyiv could have an opportunity to take advantage of Russia’s weaknesses and expected shortfalls in soldiers and tanks, American officials say.
U.S. government analysts concluded this summer that Russia was unlikely to make significant gains in Ukraine in the coming months, as its poorly trained forces struggled to break through Ukrainian defenses. But that assessment proved wrong.
Russian troops have advanced in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. They have clawed back more than a third of the territory that Ukrainian forces seized in a surprise offensive in the Kursk region of western Russia this year. The number of Russian drone strikes across Ukraine has increased from 350 in July to 750 in August and 1,500 in September.
“The situation is tense,” said a Ukrainian major stationed near Kursk who goes by the call sign Grizzly. “We are constantly losing previously occupied positions, the enemy has an advantage in men and artillery, and we are trying to hold the line.”
Gone is the Russian force that repeatedly stumbled as it invaded Ukraine in 2022. The Russian military, according to a senior U.S. military official, has evolved and is “on the march.”
As a result, some American intelligence agencies and military officials are pessimistic about Ukraine’s ability to stop Russian advances as Kyiv tries to find ways to build up forces exhausted by nearly three years of war.
Still, Russia has fallen short of its own goals. Most notably, it has not been able to take the city of Pokrovsk, a logistics hub for Ukrainian forces. And independent experts say Russia’s shortages of radar, armored vehicles and, most critically, troops will come to a head next year.
The most important immediate development for Ukraine, however, will not be on the battlefield but at the ballot box in the United States. Former President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have laid out very different visions for future American support.
Mr. Trump has promised to bring the war to a quick end, and his running mate, Senator JD Vance, has outlined a peace plan that looks a lot like one advanced by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Ms. Harris, on the other hand, has vowed to fight on, warning that if Russia was not stopped in Ukraine, its forces could attack NATO.
The election, and its uncertain outcome, is weighing heavily on Ukrainians.
After a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv last week, American officials said the Ukrainian leader looked worn and stressed, anxious about his troops’ battlefield setbacks as well as the U.S. elections.
“It’s a very tough fight, and it’s a tough slog,” Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III told reporters traveling with him to Ukraine last week.
In Ukraine, morale is eroding in the face of the Russian drive and a fear that Western support and the flow of supplies are coming to an end.
“It is very difficult at the front now,” said Yevhen Strokan, a senior lieutenant and commander of a combat drone platoon in the 206th Territorial Defense Battalion. “There is a lack of everything, there are few people, there are more Russians and they have more weapons.”
The pessimism extends to Western capitals.
“Everyone is feeling bad across the board,” said Frederick W. Kagan, a scholar with the American Enterprise Institute who has advised the U.S. military. “It has been a very long, hard year and the Russians are still grinding forward.”
But Russia, Dr. Kagan said, is trying to suggest its victory is as inevitable as it was in World War II.
“The Russians would like you to believe this is 1944 on the eastern front,” he said. “It isn’t.”
Ukraine’s Problems
Earlier this year, Ukrainian troops were struggling with shortages of ammunition supplies amid U.S. delays in approving more assistance.
Even after Congress approved more aid in April, Ukrainian officials have complained that the arms flowed too slowly, making it hard to resupply the front lines.
“This is the rule of the war,” Mr. Zelensky said this week. “Because you have to count on very specific things in very concrete time, otherwise you can’t manage this situation, you cannot manage defending lines, you can’t secure people, you can’t prepare for the winter.”
On Tuesday, Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, and Andriy Yermak, a top adviser to Mr. Zelensky, met for two hours in Washington. They discussed the Biden administration’s plans to speed artillery systems, armored vehicles and air defense ammunition to Ukraine before the end of the year.
But American military officials say weapons supplies are no longer Ukraine’s main disadvantage.
Ukraine has sharply narrowed Russia’s artillery advantage, U.S. officials said, and Ukrainian soldiers have used explosive drones to lay waste to Russian armored vehicles.
Ukraine’s biggest shortcoming now is troops, U.S. officials said.
Ukrainian officials have struggled to put in place a military draft that brings in enough troops. The country has hesitated to lower the conscription age, worried about the long-term demographic impact. Ukraine has limited itself to what one official called a more “democratic and measured” response to the shortage of troops, but as a result it is running low on soldiers.
Ukraine has used cellphone numbers, email addresses and other electronic means to get additional people to register for the military, U.S. officials said. It has also used more coercive means — like dragging people from concert halls — to find and enlist people eligible for the draft.
While many have signed up for the military out of patriotism, not enough have joined. And Ukraine’s failure to give its soldiers any real breaks from the fighting has discouraged people from serving.
The Pentagon assesses that Ukraine has enough soldiers to fight for six to 12 more months, one official said. After that, he said, it will face a steep shortage.
Ukraine diverted some of its newly created brigades to support the incursion in Kursk instead of using them as originally planned to defend eastern and southern Ukraine or to build up reserves for an expected counteroffensive in 2025, Pentagon officials say.
“They’re working hard to bring more people on board,” Mr. Austin told reporters traveling with him, when asked about the troop shortages. “They’ve got to train those people. They have to regenerate combat power.”
In his meeting with Mr. Zelensky in Kyiv, Mr. Austin underscored the importance of not only defending Pokrovsk and Kursk, but also of “force regeneration and recruitment,” a senior Pentagon official said.
In a separate meeting with their Ukrainian counterparts, Mr. Austin, Christopher G. Cavoli, the top U.S. general in Europe, and other commanders discussed military planning for the winter and the kind of arms and munitions that the United States may send in the next five months, the senior Pentagon official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential discussions.
In an impassioned speech in Kyiv, Mr. Austin condemned naysayers who might seek to end the conflict on Moscow’s terms. He said there was “no silver bullet” to turn the tide of the war in Ukraine’s favor.
“What matters is the way that Ukraine fights back,” Mr. Austin said. “And what matters is staying focused on what works.”
He added, “Moscow will never prevail in Ukraine.”
Staggering Losses
A possible opening for Ukraine might be Russia’s low supply of armored vehicles.
To offset its losses of advanced tanks, Russia tapped its huge stocks of far older tanks. But Ukrainian drones have destroyed many of Russia’s armored vehicles, particularly older models.
As a result, U.S. military officials say, Russia has relied on small infantry units to advance in eastern Ukraine. But American officials believe that many of the battlefields have become “a meat grinder” for Russian soldiers.
Mark Rutte, NATO’s new secretary general, said on Monday that more than 600,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or injured since the start of the war. Those losses are behind North Korea’s deployment of about 10,000 troops to Russia, forces that Moscow wants to use to help push Ukraine out of Kursk, U.S. officials say.
A senior American military official said the decision to bring in those forces was “ill-conceived and desperate.”
Other Western diplomats dispute that the development is a sign of desperation and say it is a move meant to scare the West. Whatever the motivation, U.S. officials acknowledge that Russia is finding more troops and continues to sign up 25,000 to 30,000 new contracted recruits per month.
Russia’s success is partly a result of a shifting recruiting message, as it now relentlessly tells would-be soldiers that the war in Ukraine is really a fight against NATO, U.S. officials said. Russian bonuses have also drastically increased.
By combining these strategies, Mr. Putin may not need to order a politically unpopular broad draft, U.S. military and intelligence officials say.
But Russia’s resources “are finite, and Putin cannot reckon with these costs indefinitely,” the Institute for the Study of War said in a report on Sunday.
Russia’s heavy recruiting has caused other problems. In brief remarks on Monday, Mr. Putin acknowledged a labor shortage. The Institute for the Study of War has repeatedly highlighted reports of industrial factories having to compete with the military, which offers robust bonuses to potential recruits.
Russia has increased its production of missiles, but elsewhere its defense industry is struggling, particularly to build new radar systems. And despite the Russian advances this year, the Ukrainians have continued to thwart some of Moscow’s bigger plans.
Ukraine deflected Russia’s drive to Pokrovsk, pushing the forces southwest of the city.
Oleksandr Shyrshyn, a 30-year-old battalion commander, said it seemed as though Ukraine’s partners had lost interest in the war and were more concerned about relations with Moscow “than justice.”
But despite that, many Ukrainians are not giving up. “Fighting is our only way out,” he said.
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