US aid delay may hamper Kyiv’s forces
Warning comes as more civilians die in Ukraine
KYIV — More civilians died across Ukraine Sunday as analysts warned that delays in US military assistance would see Kyiv struggle to fight off Russian offensives.
One man was killed after a Russian drone hit the truck he was driving in the Sumy region, the local prosecutor’s office said. Elsewhere, a 67-year-old woman was killed after shelling hit an apartment block in the Donetsk region, said Governor Vadym Filashkin.
Officials in the Kharkiv region also said Sunday that they had retrieved the bodies of a 61year-old woman and a 68-yearold man killed by a Russian strike the previous day. Ten Russian Shahed-type drones were shot down over the Kharkiv region overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said Sunday.
Meanwhile, shelling in the Russian-occupied Kherson region killed two civilians Sunday, said Moscow-installed leader Vladimir Saldo. Ukrainian drones were also reported in Russia’s Krasnodar and Belgorod regions and over the Black Sea, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
The news came as the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, warned that delays in Western military assistance would increasingly hamper Ukraine’s ability to push back Russian advances.
With the war in Ukraine entering its third year and a vital US aid package for Kyiv stuck in Congress, Russia has used its edge in firepower and personnel to step up attacks across eastern Ukraine. It has increasingly used satellite-guided gliding bombs — dropped from planes from a safe distance — to pummel Ukrainian forces beset by a shortage of troops and ammunition.
In its report, the institute said that Russian forces were prioritizing grinding, tactical gains with operational-level efforts focusing on the cities of Lyman, Chasiv Yar, and Pokrovsk.
“The Russian military command likely assesses that Ukrainian forces will be unable to defend against current and future Russian offensive operations due to delays in or the permanent end of U.S. military assistance,” the think tank said.
Ukraine’s military chief, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said Saturday that Ukraine’s battlefield situation in the industrial east had “significantly worsened in recent days,” as warming weather allowed Russian forces to launch a fresh push along several stretches of the more than 620-mile-long front line.
In an update on the Telegram messaging app, Syrskyi said that Russian forces had been “actively attacking” Ukrainian positions near the cities of Lyman, Bakhmut, and Pokrovsk, and beginning to launch tank assaults as drier, warmer spring weather made it easier for heavy vehicles to move across previously muddy terrain.
In Washington, D.C., House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday he will try to advance a package that includes wartime aid for Israel and Ukraine, as well as funds for allies in Asia.
Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, is already under immense political pressure from his fellow GOP lawmakers as he tries to stretch between the Republican Party’s divided support for helping Kyiv defend itself from Moscow’s invasion. The Republican speaker has sat for two months on a $95 billion supplemental package that would send support to the allies, as well as provide humanitarian aid for civilians in Ukraine and Gaza and funding to replenish US weapons provided to Taiwan.
The attack by Iran on Israel early Sunday further ratcheted up the pressure on Johnson, but also gave him an opportunity to underscore the urgency of approving the funding.
Johnson told Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that he and Republicans “understand the necessity of standing with Israel” and he would try this week to advance the aid.
“The details of that package are being put together right now,” he said. “We’re looking at the options and all these supplemental issues.”
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, at a news conference, also said that President Biden held a phone call Sunday with the top Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate, including Johnson. The New York Democrat said there was consensus “among all the leaders that we had to help Israel and help Ukraine, and now hopefully we can work that out and get this done next week.”
“It’s vital for the future of Ukraine, for Israel and the West,” Schumer said.