U.S. sending weapons to Ukraine

Effort aims to blunt possible invasion from Russians

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has ruled out sending U.S. troops to fight in Ukraine, but American-made weapons are already there in force, and more will be on the way.

How effective they would be in turning back a Russian invasion is another question.

Since 2014, the United States has committed more than $2.7 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, according to the Pentagon, including a $200 million package in December comprising equipment like Javelin and other anti-armor systems, grenade launchers, large quantities of artillery, mortars and small-arms ammunition.

But military experts say that with 150,000 troops on three sides of Ukraine, the Russian army could quickly overwhelm the Ukrainian military, even one that is backed by

the United States and its European allies. Ukrainian forces stretched thin by defending multiple borders would have to prioritize which units received advanced weaponry and extra ammunition.

Ukrainian troops — trained in recent years by U.S. Army Green Berets and other NATO special forces, and better equipped than in Russia’s last invasion in 2014 — would likely bloody advancing Russian troops. But a long-term Ukrainian strategy, U.S. officials said, would be to mount a guerrilla insurgency supported by the West that could bog down the Russian military for years.

“We have supplied the Ukrainian military with equipment to help them defend themselves,” Biden said Tuesday. “We provided training and advice and intelligence for the same purpose.”

Sending weapons to Ukraine is important, said James G. Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral who was the supreme allied commander at NATO, but even more pivotal may be less visible countermeasures: U.S. intelligence to help pinpoint Russian forces and new tools to defend against crippling cyberassaults and to counterattack Russian military communications.

The effectiveness of the U.S. military aid will largely hinge on what President Vladimir Putin of Russia orders his forces to do, military analysts said.

If Russia launches mostly air and missiles strikes, the equipment does not help that much, said Rob Lee, a former U.S. Marine officer and Russian military specialist at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. Absent in the influx of U.S. military aid are advanced air defenses, like Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems.

If Russian forces invade but do not intend to occupy the country, the weaponry also might not be that significant, Lee said. But if Russian forces seek to occupy the country or go into major urban areas, the weapons — and any future supplies from the United States — could help sustain an insurgency.

To underscore the potential consequences for Russia, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, delivered a stark message to his Russian counterpart when they spoke in late December: Yes, Milley said, the Ukrainian military stands little chance of repelling the larger, better armed Russian force.

But a swift victory would be followed, Milley told Gen. Valery Gerasimov, by a bloody insurgency, similar to the one that led the Soviet Union to leave Afghanistan in 1989, according to officials familiar with the discussion. Milley did not detail to Gerasimov the planning underway in Washington to support an insurgency, a so-called “porcupine strategy” to make invading Ukraine hard for the Russians to swallow. That includes the advance positioning of arms for Ukrainian insurgents, including Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, that could be used against Russian forces.

The United States began using social media to highlight the transfers of weapons to the government in Kyiv shortly after it first became clear that Putin was amassing a potential invasion force along his country’s border with Ukraine. The messaging from the United States has not been subtle, with the government releasing photographs of planeloads of weapons and equipment. Additional aid could be on the way. On Capitol Hill, senators in both parties have coalesced behind legislation that would authorize Biden to use the Lend-Lease Act of 1941, last used in World War II, to lend military equipment to Ukraine.

Since becoming an independent nation, Ukraine has largely stuck with the family of weapons designed by the Soviet Union. That can be seen in the Ukrainian army’s use of Kalashnikov-type assault rifles instead of the M16s and M4 carbines used by the United States and many other Western militaries.

That began to change after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, with the United States providing hundreds of antitank missiles and other weapons to Ukraine. “The number of Javelins given to Ukraine numbered in the many hundred before these recent shipments were made,” said Alexander Vindman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who oversaw European affairs on the National Security Council from 2018-20.