Ukrainian troops are slowly losing ground, and officials say more support is needed to hold Russia back
By James Marson, Alexander Ward and Lara Seligman
September 29, 2024
The Wall Street Journal
NEW YORK—The tepid reception of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the U.S. last week exposed the narrowing options he faces after 2½ years of war.
Zelensky touted what he has called his “victory plan,” an effort to win more weapons and security guarantees from the U.S. and its allies to gain some leverage over Russia, in a flurry of meetings as he shuttled between New York and Washington.
But Biden administration officials, long wary of making moves that Moscow could perceive as escalation, expressed skepticism and said they wanted more details. President Biden released a fresh tranche of already approved military aid, but didn’t grant Zelensky’s main request: permission to strike into Russia with longer-range missiles.
Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, reiterated after meeting Zelensky on Friday that his priority was to seek a quick end to the war with “a fair deal for both sides,” without detailing how it could be achieved. Trump, who has declined to say whether he wants Kyiv to win the war, said he had a “very good relationship” with Russian President Vladimir Putin,” as well as Ukraine’s visiting leader. “I hope we have more good relations,” Zelensky interjected.
The Ukrainian leader’s struggles to garner a significant boost in U.S. support, his country’s most important foreign backer, points to a perilous road ahead.
His country’s troops are facing their most serious situation in months on the main battlefield in the east, where they find themselves outgunned and outnumbered against relentless Russian attacks. Russian troops are jabbing forward at several points along the 800-mile front line, including a dangerous push for the key Ukrainian logistics hub of Pokrovsk. That would advance Russia’s main current goal of seizing all of the eastern Donetsk region, which the Kremlin has already declared part of Russia.
Ukrainian troops are inflicting heavy losses on advancing Russians, but are struggling to hold back forces from a country with a population four times larger. Zelensky says Ukraine needs permission to use longer-range missiles supplied by the U.S. and Europe to strike inside Russia to relieve the pressure on the front lines.
Biden has declined to lift restrictions, despite open calls to do so from Kyiv and European allies, as well as some members of Congress, fearing such a move could escalate the conflict with Russia.
Biden pledged continued support to Ukraine as he released a fresh package of military aid worth nearly $8 billion. Vice President Kamala Harris, who met Zelensky separately at the White House, also pledged further support. In a sign of increasing concern about the situation, some European allies urged bolder action from the U.S. Alexander Stubb, Finland’s president, and Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said in interviews that Putin’s threats to escalate had proven largely empty, and that there was little indication that would change if the U.S. allowed Ukraine to strike Russia with longer-range missiles. Even if Moscow escalated the conflict, Landsbergis said, that would be a necessary risk to take as “there’s a war to win.” The worst consequences out of all the possibilities, he said, would be if Ukraine lost the war.
Some members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization acknowledge that Ukraine will need significantly more weapons as well as the kind of security guarantees that only this alliance can provide to halt Russia’s quest to dominate its neighbor. “I think it is clear now, after 2½ years with war in Europe, that this is not primarily a question about Ukraine. This is primarily a question about Russia and their imperial dreams,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said.
Without a major surge in the quantity and power of weapons flowing into Ukraine, Zelensky’s stated goal of returning all occupied territory, about one-fifth of the country, appears distant. In recent months, he has tweaked his rhetoric to focus on the need for Ukraine to receive enough support to “force Russia into peace,” as he told the United Nations on Tuesday. His troops launched a surprise invasion of Russia’s Kursk region, the first major incursion since World War II, to increase Kyiv’s leverage. After meeting Trump on Friday, Zelensky said they had found some common ground. “We have a common view that the war in Ukraine must be stopped. Putin cannot win. Ukraine must win,” he said. Trump suggested that both sides wanted the war to stop, and reiterated that he thought he could negotiate a rapid deal. Officials in Ukraine and Europe worry that could result in a rapid withdrawal of support for Ukraine to try to force it to make a deal with Russia, however unfavorable.
Republicans typically supportive of Ukraine appear to be maneuvering to reflect Trump’s language. “The reality of it is that the way the war in Ukraine is going to end is with a negotiated settlement,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee and a former vice-presidential hopeful, said Sunday on NBC News’s “Meet the Press” program.
Putin, meanwhile, has shown no interest in peace negotiations other than to impose conditions on Ukraine that would strip it of territory and reduce it to a vassal of Moscow. Back in Ukraine, Zelensky on Sunday said 14 people were injured in a Russian airstrike on the southern city of Zaporizhzhia. He said Russia is dropping around 100 massive glide bombs daily, which he called “a daily Russian terror.” “This is a constant reminder to all our partners who can help that we need more long-range capabilities for Ukraine, we need more air defense for Ukraine, we need more sanctions against Russia,” he said.
James Marson leads Ukraine coverage for The Wall Street Journal. He has covered Ukraine for 15 years, chronicling its efforts to establish itself as an independent European democracy through
a revolution and a war with Russia. James began writing for the Journal in Ukraine before moving to Moscow to cover oil and gas. He soon switched back to Ukraine, where he wrote about the Maidan revolution and Russia’s invasion in 2014. He moved to Brussels to cover European security in 2019, but shifted his focus back to Ukraine when Russia invaded in February 2022.
Alexander Ward is a national security reporter covering the White House and State Department for The Wall Street Journal in Washington. Alex’s reporting focuses in particular on the inner workings of the National Security Council and how top players in an administration formulate and execute foreign policy. Alex was previously the White House and national security reporter at Politico, where he was also the first author of its “National Security Daily” newsletter. Before that, he was Vox’s White House reporter covering foreign policy and worked at the Atlantic Council think tank covering national security and military affairs. Alex has won numerous awards for his reporting and was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist along with Politico colleagues for Supreme Court coverage. In February 2024, Alex published his first book, “The Internationalists: The Fight to Restore American Foreign Policy after Trump.” He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Lara Seligman covers national security from the White House and the Pentagon. Lara previously spent four years at Politico as a defense reporter. Her reporting on the military and the defense industry has taken her around the world, with time spent covering geopolitics in real time in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Lara previously covered the Pentagon and national security for Foreign Policy. She also has written for publications including the Washington Post and Defense News.