Russian forces "did not accomplish that much" along the frontlines snaking down eastern Ukraine while significant U.S. military aid for Kyiv languished in Congress earlier this year, the U.S. Defense Department has said.
"In the seven months that we were working to get additional security assistance and supplemental funding for Ukraine, the Russians made an effort to try to push and take Ukrainian territory and really did not accomplish that much in terms of the amount of geography that they were able to take," Pentagon spokesperson Major General Pat Ryder told the media on Tuesday. Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.
U.S. lawmakers approved more than $60 billion in military aid in late April after several months of political infighting. Previously-authorized funding in the U.S. dwindled in late 2023, with warnings from the White House in early December saying that "we are out of money—and nearly out of time."
Ukraine is heavily reliant on donations by its Western backers, including the U.S., to prop up its war effort. Russia, while receiving some donations from allies like North Korea, quickly placed its defense industry on a war footing to replenish the resources it was losing in Ukraine.
"The Russian army is now trying to take advantage of a situation when we are waiting for supplies from our partners, especially from the United States of America," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in late April.
Also speaking shortly after Congress greenlit the fresh aid, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said that "serious delays in support have meant serious consequences on the battlefield," pointing to obstacles tripping up U.S. aid and that European nations had "been unable to deliver ammunition at the scale we promised."
"Russia has been able to push forward along the front line," he said during a visit to Kyiv.
Delays in weapons deliveries to Ukraine, Kyiv officials have also said, have limited Kyiv's operations, including forcing Ukraine to launch its counteroffensive in 2023 later than intended and offering up an advantage to Moscow.
From December, Russia made slow but steady gains, particularly in the heart of fighting in eastern Ukraine. In February, Moscow captured the former Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka, perched on the northwestern shoulder of regional capital, Donetsk City.
It was the most significant win for Russia in eastern Ukraine since the Kremlin's forces seized the Donetsk settlement of Bakhmut in May 2023.
In early May, before aid deliveries from the freshly-approved funding could reach Ukraine, Russia opened up a new front and launched a cross-border push from its Belgorod region into Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region.
Moscow claimed a smattering of villages, and placed increased pressure on Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, despite Ukrainian forces stemming the tide of quick advances from the north.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov on Tuesday that Washington will unveil a further $2.3 billion in aid for Ukraine, according to a Pentagon readout.
The aid will provide "urgently needed air defense interceptors," as well as artillery supplies and anti-tank weapons, the Defense Department said.
Ukraine has repeatedly appealed for air defense supplies as Russia maintains intensive aerial bombing campaigns on Ukrainian territory, often out of the range of Kyiv's air defenses.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense reporter based in London, U.K. Her work focuses largely on the Russia-Ukraine ... Read more
