End ‘too little, too late’ syndrome in Ukraine

The White House and its NATO allies still seem determined to deny Ukraine the means to victory over Russian invaders.

When President Joe Biden finally promised to deliver advanced U.S. tanks to Ukraine late last month, I thought the administration had finally overcome its timidity about sending Kyiv the critical weapons systems it needs, including planes and the long-range missile system known as ATACMS.

I was wrong. Once again, Washington and its allies are offering too little, too late. They must not miss the urgent need of the current moment: to help Ukraine block an upcoming Russian offensive and push the Russians back from most occupied territory. Time is not on Ukraine’s side.

The reasons for the delays keep changing. At the beginning of the war, the Biden administration thought the Russians would quickly overtake Kyiv, and it planned to train Ukrainian resistance forces. But Kyiv’s heroic soldiers and civilians routed the Russians.

Then, the excuse was that it would take months to train the Ukrainians, but their highly tech-savvy soldiers quickly mastered any new weapons systems that arrived.

Finally, the explanation was that advanced weapons would be “escalatory,” or lead Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons. However, Russia kept escalating anyway, massively destroying Ukrainian cities.

So Ukrainians find it hard to understand the current U.S. reasoning for delays in sending key weapons systems — at a time when Russia is gearing up to throw hundreds of thousands of newly mobilized fighters at Ukrainian forces in human waves. Even if they are poorly trained, the numbers of Russians are daunting.

“I respect President Biden for all the help he has given us and for uniting the allies,” I was told by Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member of parliament from Odesa, who visited Philadelphia last week to give a lecture called “Live Free or Die: Lessons for the Free World from the War in Ukraine” at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. “But how is it,” he queried, “that it was impossible to give us Patriot air defense systems last summer and this January it became possible?

“In the summer we needed Patriots to save our electrical grid [which Russia has badly bombed, forcing Ukrainians to go without heat, water, electricity, and communications in the cold winter]. Now it is too late,” Goncharenko said.

The same question arises over tanks. The 31 M1 Abrams tanks that Biden promised last month won’t arrive for months, or even longer. Biden made a snap decision to finally offer them in order to squeeze German Chancellor Olaf Sholz into green-lighting the delivery of much more suitable Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. The Leopards are badly needed to blunt the Russian offensive.

But the NATO allies have promised only around 100 Leopards, even though there are roughly 2,000 of them in the arsenals of European countries. Ukraine needs hundreds more tanks to adequately confront the mounting Russian efforts. “The U.S. could have sent Abrams tanks months before,” Goncharenko said, “but the allies always seem to be catching up with past events. They need to make the courageous decision to look ahead.”

Specifically, the U.S. needs to start training Ukrainian pilots on F-16 planes and delivering U.S. Army Tactical Missile Systems, which have a range of 200 miles. Those ATACMS could enable a Ukrainian counteroffensive to cut off Russia’s land route along the Black Sea coast that supplies its bases in Crimea. That victory alone could change the entire dynamic of the war.

Yet the White House says no ATACMS are on offer and instead is sending a more limited system with a range of around 100 miles, which will be far less effective.

The administration is supposedly worried that Kyiv might use ATACMS to attack bases inside Russian territory. But Ukraine coordinates closely with the U.S. military and has long since proven itself trustworthy. “Give us ATACMS now and we are ready for any restrictions,” Goncharenko insisted.

It’s time for Biden to end the drip, drip, drip of incremental U.S. military aid to Ukraine and pull NATO allies with him. Give Kyiv the systems it needs now, including ATACMS, to end this war in 2023 — for the sake of U.S. security, and Ukraine’s future. History will judge the Biden foreign policy team on whether this is done.