This title is very disingenuous. Officials only said that funding toward a counteroffensive similar to last summer would likely result in the same outcome, so the funding is aimed towards reinforcing their supply lines and fortifying the area that they've already retaken. That doesn't mean that the United States has put into their war plans that Ukraine will never retake their lost land. It's just not accounted for in their funding for the next year.
The emerging plan is a sharp change from last year, when the U.S. and allied militaries rushed training and sophisticated equipment to Kyiv in hopes that it could quickly push back Russian forces occupying eastern and southern Ukraine.
This spring the administration hopes to release its own 10-year commitment, now being compiled by the State Department with the blessing of the White House — assuming that President Biden’s $61 billion request for supplemental Ukraine funding is approved by a recalcitrant Congress.
It will include specific promises and programs to help protect, reconstitute and expand Ukraine’s industrial and export base, and assist the country with political reforms needed for full integration into Western institutions.
In conversations with lawmakers, administration officials have emphasized that only about half of the requested $61 billion is targeted at the current battlefield, while the rest is directed toward helping Ukraine undergird a secure future without massive Western aid.
What is needed most immediately for the “fight” phase is “artillery ammunition, some replacement of vehicles” lost in the counteroffensive, “a lot more drones,” said Eric Ciaramella, a former CIA intelligence analyst and now a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who has consulted with administration officials.
The “build” phase of the strategy is focused on pledges for Ukraine’s future security force on land, sea and air, so that the Ukrainians “can see what they’re getting from the global community over a 10-year period and ... come out of 2024 with a road map to a highly deterrent military,” the first senior administration official said.
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