Across much of the 600-mile front line in Ukraine, Kyiv’s forces are on the defensive, outnumbered and often outgunned, despite fresh supplies of western military aid.
A barrage of Russian missile strikes across Ukraine this week, including on a children’s hospital in Kyiv, has also raised fears that the Kremlin is seeking to further intensify its attacks on civilian infrastructure to demoralise the country before the upcoming winter.
As President Zelensky meets western allies at a Nato summit in Washington from July 9-11, his efforts are focused on securing the delivery of new air defence systems, fighter jets and new security guarantees.
There is currently no prospect of Ukraine being invited to join the western military alliance, although Nato is expected to state that Kyiv’s path towards membership is irreversible.
In Moscow, President Putin has said there can be no end to the war, now well into its third year, unless Kyiv agrees to surrender the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions, as well as Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014.
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These territories, which include two major cities that are not under Moscow’s control, represent around 20 per cent of Ukraine’s total territory. Ukraine has ruled out giving up territory for peace.
Putin has also demanded that Ukraine formally renounces its ambitions to join Nato and that the West scraps all of its sanctions against Moscow. Barring unexpected developments, there would appear to be no end in sight to the war, which is the biggest conflict in Europe since 1945.
What’s the situation on the battlefield?
Russia achieved a breakthrough in the Kharkiv region on the border between the two countries in May, but Ukraine has since managed to “stabilise” the situation there, its commanders say. The Ukrainian fightback received a major boost when Washington dropped a ban on Kyiv using American missiles to strike Putin’s army inside Russia. However, the White House has said its missiles can only be deployed to destroy the Kremlin’s forces on the border and not for longer-range strikes at missile sites and military bases deeper inside Russia. Britain has said it does not place restrictions on how Ukraine uses the Storm Shadow missiles.
Russia is also making slow but steady progress in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. Fierce battles are currently raging for Chasiv Yar and Toretsk, strategically important towns whose capture would likely allow Moscow’s forces to push on further into the region. The Kremlin’s war effort is being supported by 24/7 weapons production in Russian factories, outstripping the output by Ukraine’s western allies.
However, Moscow isn’t having things all its own way. Despite not being a naval power, Kyiv has decimated Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, using sea drones, mines and western missiles to destroy or damage around half of its 80 warships, Kyiv says. The attacks have forced Moscow to relocate the fleet away from occupied Crimea to Novorossiysk, a Russian port. Ukraine has also successfully targeted Russian oil depots to disrupt the Kremlin’s military supply lines.
What does Ukraine need from Nato?
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President Biden has promised that Ukraine will receive five new air defence systems from Nato member states to help it defend its cities from Russian cruise and ballistic missiles. The advanced systems are of no use, however, against the aerial guided bombs that Moscow has been using to pound Ukrainian troops, towns and cities in the east of the country. Also known as glide bombs, they weigh between 500kg and 1,500kg and are fired from Russian warplanes, with devastating effect.
There are also concerns that Russia has learnt how to more effectively evade western air defences. “Enemy missiles are equipped with additional means, including radar and thermal traps,” Colonel Yuri Ignat, a Ukrainian air force representative, wrote after the strikes that killed over 40 people across Ukraine on Monday.
Ukraine is also expected to take delivery of long-awaited F-16 fighter jets, which will provide some protection against glide bombs. The US initially refused to approve their deployment to Kyiv but finally relented in August 2023. Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway have pledged to transfer dozens of the American jets to Ukraine. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said today that they would take to the skies of Ukraine this summer.
Speaking in Washington, Zelensky said that so far Ukraine had agreements on the arrival of up to 20 of the warplanes. “But even if there are 50, it’s nothing,” he said. “They have 300 [warplanes]. Until we have 128 aircraft, we will not be able to match them in the sky.”
Kyiv and Washington have been at loggerheads over delays in training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots. Oleksandra Ustinova, the head of Ukraine’s special parliamentary commission on arms and munitions, told The Times last month that just 20 Ukrainian pilots were being trained to fly the American warplanes. “So far we’re going to have fewer trained pilots than fighter jets,” she said.
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Ukraine’s greatest need, however, is arguably for western troops, the one thing that Nato, which wants to avoid a direct conflict with nuclear-armed Russia, is extremely unlikely to provide. Russia’s population of 144 million people is more than three times larger than Ukraine’s and Kyiv is struggling to plug manpower shortages at the front. Although around 1,000 Russian soldiers are being killed or injured every single day, the Kremlin is so far managing to replace them through an aggressive recruiting campaign.
Could the election of Donald Trump change the outcome of the war?
Donald Trump has vowed to end the war in 24 hours if he returns to the White House. His plan appears to be to tell Zelensky that Washington will cut aid to Ukraine unless Kyiv agrees to a deal with Russia that would most likely result in it losing territory. At the same time, he would also likely inform Putin that the US will accelerate military support for Kyiv unless Russia calls off its invasion. However, Trump is notoriously unpredictable and officials in Ukraine are unsure what exactly to expect if he triumphs in November’s elections.
“I can’t tell you what he will do, if he will be the president of the United States,” Zelensky said. “I don’t know. Everyone is waiting for November. Americans are waiting for November. In Europe, the Middle East, in the Pacific, the whole world is looking towards November and, truly speaking, Putin awaits November too.”
