Ukraine’s military faces overwhelming force
Generals say country can’t repel possible looming Russian invasion
OKYIV, Ukraine n the 30th anniversary of the founding of Ukraine’s armed forces, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy donned a helmet and flak jacket to tour the trenches this week and announced with great fanfare the delivery of new tanks, armored vehicles and ships to front-line units engaged in fighting Russian forces and Kremlin-backed separatists.
The weapons systems may help to maintain parity in the slow-moving war of attrition that has prevailed for years. But neither they nor anything else the Ukrainian military can now muster would be sufficient to repel a full-on Russian assault that Ukrainian and Western officials say Moscow might be preparing. With nearly 100,000 troops now massed across Ukraine’s eastern, northern and southern borders and more on the way, even the Ukrainian officials responsible for their country’s defense acknowledge that without a significant influx of resources, their forces do not stand much of a chance.
“Unfortunately, Ukraine needs to be objective at this stage,” said Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service. “There are not sufficient military resources for repelling a full-scale attack by Russia if it begins without the support of Western forces.”
Budanov outlined his nightmare vision of a Russian invasion that would begin with airstrikes and rocket attacks aimed initially at ammunition depots and trench-bound troops. Very quickly, he said, the Ukrainian military would be incapacitated, its leadership unable to coordinate a defense and supply the front. After that, he said, responsibility would fall to front-line commanders to carry on the fight alone.
“They will hold up as long as there are bullets,” Budanov said. “They’ll be able to use what they have in their hands, but … without delivery of reserves, there’s not an army in the world that can hold out.”
While Russia could be prepared militarily to launch an invasion of Ukraine as early as January or February, Ukraine and Western intelligence services say there is no indication that Russia President Vladimir Putin has made up his mind whether to do so. In a video call with President Joe Biden on Tuesday, Putin dismissed concerns about the troop buildup on Ukraine’s border, shifting blame to the United States and NATO, which he accused of threatening Russia’s security by supporting Ukraine’s military with arms and training.
Biden followed up that call with one Thursday afternoon to Zelenskyy, which White House press secretary Jen Psaki described as an opportunity for Biden to share details of his conversation with Putin and to express support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. She declined to specify any Ukrainian requests that might have been made to Biden.
In Kyiv, Zelenskyy’s office said in a statement that Zelenskyy had thanked Biden in the call for his “consistent, firm and decisive support.” It said that both leaders discussed ways to counteract the “hybrid aggression” directed at Ukraine from Russia but did not go into details.
The massing of troops and heavy weaponry on the border has forced Ukrainian officials to face some hard truths in recent weeks. The U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Russia has devised plans for an offensive involving 175,000 troops.
Ukraine has only slightly more enlisted soldiers and officers in its entire military, according to the Ministry of Defense. It is outgunned on land, at sea and in the air, with only about 200 aircraft in its air force, including transport vehicles, fewer than the number of fighter planes that Russia has deployed already to the Ukrainian border.
Ukraine’s military is not the pushover it once was. In 2014, elite Russia troops were able to seize the entire Crimean Peninsula in southern Ukraine without firing a shot. When Russian-backed separatists then took over part of eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region, Ukraine had to rely on volunteer brigades of people who took up arms, with little or no military training, to help beat back the insurgency.
But the Ukrainian military clawed its way back, fighting the separatists to a stalemate and putting a stop to the most serious hostilities. It did so with help from Western allies. The United States alone has provided
$2.5 billion in military assistance that has included high-tech surveillance and communications equipment and drones. In November, the United States delivered about 88 tons of ammunition, part of a $60 million military aid package pledged by the Biden administration.
On Wednesday, Biden ruled out deploying U.S. forces to Ukraine to deter Russia. But there are more than 150 U.S. military advisers in Ukraine, a combination of U.S. Special Forces and National Guard, currently the Florida National Guard’s 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, according to two U.S. Defense Department officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive troop deployments. About a dozen other NATO countries also have military advisers in Ukraine now, the officials said.
Under the Trump administration, the Ukrainians, for the first time, were given anti-tank Javelin missiles. Ukrainian forces so far have refrained from firing Javelins on the battlefield, partly from a desire to avoid antagonizing the Kremlin.
The Biden administration has continued to supply them, delivering a new cache of missiles in October. John F. Kirby, a Pentagon spokesperson, said Wednesday that there were no conditions or restrictions placed on the Javelins, except that the Ukrainian forces use them “responsibly” and “in self-defense.”
In an interview with Radio Liberty this month, Gen. Oleksandr Pavlyuk, the commander of the Joint Operation Forces fighting the separatists, said the Javelins had already been deployed to military units in eastern Ukraine. A senior Ukrainian military official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military issues, confirmed that Javelin missiles had been deployed to front-line military units a month ago, but had not yet been fired in battle.
“The Javelins are there, and if our enemies employ tanks they will be used,” the official said.
The Biden administration has remained vague about how else it might come to Ukraine’s defense in case of invasion.