Ukraine faces tough weeks ahead in its fight to stem Russian battlefield advances despite this weekend’s passage of a long-awaited US funding bill, according to Ukrainian officials, soldiers and military analysts.
The US House of Representatives passed the $60bn military aid package on Saturday night after months of delay that have left Ukraine short of critical weaponry in the face of Russian advances.
American weapons and munitions will start flowing into Ukraine within the coming days if the bill is approved by the US Senate this week, as is widely expected.
The time between political decisions and actual damage to the enemy on the front lines, between the package’s approval and our warriors’ strengthening, must be as short as possible,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Sunday evening address.
Western and Ukrainian officials said some of the material assistance, including arms and ammunition, was already packaged in depots in Poland and elsewhere in Europe and ready to be transported.
But the delivery of the US aid is unlikely to dramatically alter Kyiv’s situation on the frontline, according to Ukrainian officials, soldiers and military analysts.
Commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky warned this month that the situation had “significantly worsened” after Russian forces stepped up offensive actions along several points on the 1,000km frontline since capturing the industrial city of Avdiivka in February.
