Alarm in Kiev over suspension of US arms shipments

MoscowConcern is mounting in Ukraine after the United States announced it is halting some planned arms shipments. Volodymyr Zelensky's government fears this decision will spur Vladimir Putin to intensify attacks against Kiev. "Any delay in supporting Ukraine's defensive capabilities would only encourage the aggressor to continue war and terror, rather than seek peace," the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry warned. The White House justifies this move by concern that US military arsenals are falling to too low levels.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has expressed surprise at the situation and has asked the Pentagon for an explanation. According to NBC, the deliveries being postponed could include Patriot anti-aircraft missiles, ammunition, and grenade launchers. This comes at a time when the Ukrainian army is having increasing difficulty repelling the daily barrage of Russian missiles and drones. The Kremlin, in fact, has welcomed the news. Its spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, believes that "the less weapons are supplied to Ukraine, the closer the end of the special military operation will be."

However, a major impact that would reverse the balance of power on the Ukrainian front is not expected in the short term. The latest reports from military analysts agree that the Russian army's offensive this summer, with which Putin hoped to show up at the negotiating table with the best possible cards., has been watered down in recent weeks. However, while in the northeast, in the Ukrainian region of Sumi, Zelensky's troops have held back Russian soldiers, in the east, in Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk, Moscow's troops are making substantial progress and, furthermore, claim 100% control of Luhansk.

Since successfully expelling Kiev's soldiers from the Russian region of Kursk at the end of April, the Kremlin has amassed nearly 50,000 men in the Ukrainian border area of Sumi. The objective is to push enemy artillery away from Russian territory and force Zelensky to concentrate more resources. Russia intensified its attacks against this region during the spring, but the offensive seems to have reached a standstill, so much so that, in recent days, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, Oleksandr Sirski, was able to state that the line of contact had stabilized.

Russian troops are located about twenty kilometers from the city of Sumi and outnumber Ukrainian troops by a ratio of three to one, but the recent incorporation of elite units from Kiev has even allowed them to regain ground. According to Ukrainian army sources cited by theWall Street JournalMoscow is capable of sustaining some 300 to 400 casualties per day and yet continue to replace them with new reservists.

Moscow's troops have advanced nearly 140 square kilometers in this territory, more than in any other. Military experts warn that "the [Ukrainian] defense continues to crumble rapidly, and the enemy is making significant progress."Agentstvothat "there are hardly any other areas where the situation is so critical."

The key enclave of Pokrovsk

The Russian army has been trying to capture the city of Pokrovsk for months., a vital enclave in Donetsk because it connects the front with the west, toward Dnipro and Kiev, and is key for troop transport, the evacuation of wounded, and the supply of weapons. According to the Ukrainian military, Russia is besieging the city (pre-war with a population of around 60,000) with more than 110,000 soldiers. The loss of this town would be a severe blow to Zelensky, as it would pave the way for Kremlin troops to reach Donetsk's last Ukrainian strongholds: Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

In this effort, Moscow's strategy now involves penetrating a region bordering Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk to the west. DeepState confirmed this Monday what the Russian military has been proclaiming for weeks: that it is making progress within this territory for the first time since the war began. However, according to analysts, it is still a "gray zone," that is, under dispute. If the Russian advance continues, Mikhailov warns that the supply lines of Ukrainian units will be affected in the direction of Pokrovsk.

Also this Monday, the leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, Leonid Pasechnik, announced full control of the region by Moscow's troops. However, neither the Kremlin has claimed credit, nor has Kiev admitted it, nor have military analysts been informed. Putin has been claiming for months that his soldiers controlled 99% of this area of Donbas, and if confirmed, his final conquest will have taken longer than he expected. In fact, three years ago, in July 2022, Russia declared Luhansk completely occupied, and weeks later, Ukraine reconquered part of it.

Doubts about Russian capabilities

Be that as it may, other military experts are downplaying the Russian offensive. "It's just a continuation of what they've been doing in the spring," Angelica Evans, a specialist at the Institute for the Study of War, explains in the Telegraph. "From the first months of the war, they haven't really demonstrated that they can advance as quickly and widely as they would need to conquer these cities," she adds.

Even the most radical sectors of Russian nationalism had been predicting modest results for the Kremlin's offensive for days. From prison, Colonel Igor Girkin, convicted for his criticism of Putin, wrote on June 19 that the advance on Sumi would be "stuck in the next two or three weeks" and would proceed "at the same snail's pace as in the Donbas." According to the military official, there are only two options: to arrive in the fall "with the same positions or with worsened positions."