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( ) Russo-Ukraine War - 2024 :https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/russo-ukraine-2024.htm
( ) Russo-Ukraine War - 2024:Russo-Ukrainian War - 04 February 2024 - Day 710 - https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/russo-ukraine-2024-maps.htm
Russo-Ukraine War - 2024
A number of claims and counterclaims are being made on the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the ground and online. While GlobalSecurity.org takes utmost care to accurately report this news story, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos.
On 24 February 2022, Ukraine was suddenly and deliberately attacked by land, naval and air forces of Russia, igniting the largest European war since the Great Patriotic War. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation" (SVO - spetsialnaya voennaya operatsiya) in Ukraine. The military buildup in preceeding months makes it obvious that the unprovoked and dastardly Russian attack was deliberately planned long in advance. During the intervening time, the Russian government had deliberately sought to deceive the world by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.
"To initiate a war of aggression... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." [Judgment of the International Military Tribunal]
The United States continues to work with its Allies and partners to provide Ukraine with additional capabilities to defend itself. This includes Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative [USAI] and Ukraine Presidential Drawdown Replenishment. DoD Components provide estimations for valuing assets provided under Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA). Excess Defense Articles [EDA] are provided to partner nation at a reduced price (based on the condition of the equipment) or as a grant once the Military Departments identify excess equipment.
"We have heard reports from the Ukrainian government that they have concerns -- from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and general staff that they are concerned that they believe that units are not -- do not have the stocks and the stores of ammunition that they require, and that is one of the reasons we have been focusing on the need to answer Congress's questions so that they are able to move forward on a decision to pass the supplemental." Assistant Secretary of Defense International Security Affairs Celeste Wallander said 24 January 2024.
Wallander said "we are able to provide ammunition and interceptors that were contracted for in 2022 and 2023 under USAI, but those levels are not -- are not at the same level when we were able to provide on a regular basis ammunition and interceptors and other capabilities funded both by PDA and by USAI. So without USAI, we're not able to sustain the same levels of provision of capability to Ukraine."
The Biden administration and House Republicans failed to reach a funding deal that would have included an additional $60 billion in security assistance for Ukraine's military effort. In an interview 16 January 2024 with ABC News, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba said that this money would potentially allow Ukraine to avoid a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia, in which American troops would be forced to intervene. "Even if we run out of weapons, we will fight with shovels. Because the existence of this nation is at stake for Ukraine," he told ABC News during an interview in Kyiv.
The "prospects for passing any deal on immigration policy and Ukraine aid in the Republican-led House are near zero... House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is beholden to his right wing and to former president Donald Trump.... in a leaked call with GOP members, Johnson went further, saying he wouldn’t accept any Senate deal and that he doesn’t think the border issue can be solved until a Republican becomes president.... Johnson has no political motivation to move against his right wing and defy Trump to support a Senate compromise. Why give President Biden a win on the border going into the general election? Setting extremist standards for immigration reform was part of MAGA’s plan to kill both efforts all along." wrote Josh Rogin in The Washington Post 19 January 2024.
Despite the huge American and Western aid amounting to more than $100 billion during 2023, its counterattack - which was much promoted - ended in great disappointment after Russia repelled it, and the Ukrainian army did not succeed in regaining the territory controlled by Moscow, which is estimated at a fifth of Ukrainian territory. If Kiev receives a large boost of US aid in 2024, as President Biden hoped, it may still have to consolidate its power and absorb the relentless Russian attacks.
The Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center noted that Russia commenced 2024 with the biggest air and drone strikes since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, attacking civilians and infrastructure in cities including Kyiv and Kharkiv, as ammunition for Western-provided air defense ran out and debates continued in Washington on whether to provide more. With deflated expectations on territorial progress by Ukraine, and attention shifted to the Israel-Hamas war, international media has largely deemed the ongoing counter-offensive a failure and the war on Ukraine a stalemate.
However, contrary the expectations of pessimists, Ukrainian strikes into the Black Sea and the Russian navy headquarters in Sevastopol crippled Russian naval efforts in the region and broken the long-standing blockade on Ukrainian trade. As recently as late December 2023, Ukrainian drone and missile strikes hit and destroyed key Russian warships and landing craft in occupied Crimea. Additionally, the Ukrainian military continued to repel Russian forces in cities in the east and south, inflicting possibly unsustainable manpower and equipment attrition on the Russian military.
The dubious framing of the war as a stalemate had become an argument against further Western support for Ukraine and led some to push for negotiations with the Kremlin. Such narratives discount the substantial successes Ukraine enjoyed in the Black Sea and ignored the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin had shown no real indication of moving away from his maximalist war aims for conquest of Ukraine and imposition of a New Europe. Nor had Putin shown the political will to conscript the army needed to realize such ambitions.
The Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center proposed the key quesitns for the new year - What does Ukraine need to succeed in 2024? How did the media narrative of the failed counteroffensive form, and how can Ukraine’s Western allies best maintain international support for continued aid? What is the true danger of accommodating a continuously aggressive Kremlin?
Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba stated 25 January 2024 that the gross domestic product of Ukraine and its allies is 21 times higher than that of Russia and its allies. The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported this in an interview with Foreign Affairs. "If you take the states that militarily support Ukraine and those that militarily support Russia, the combined GDP of our state and allies is 21 times greater than that of the Russian "coalition," Kuleba said. The minister emphasized that, "according to this, the world has enough resources for Ukraine's victory even in a war of attrition."
Kuleba emphasized that even when analyzing the ability to create coalitions, Ukraine exceeds the capabilities of the Russian Federation in this regard. "And it's funny, because Ukraine is not a member of the G7, and yet the G7 is much more united in helping Ukraine protect its interests. Russia is one of the founders of BRICS, but BRICS is much less supportive of the Russian Federation, even though it is supposedly a member of their families," said the minister.
