Ukraine faces bleak future as war with Russia hits third year

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Alexei Navalny and other opposition figures who posed threats to Russian President Vladimir Putin are dead.

Ukrainian troops are running perilously low on ammunition. Russian forces are gaining ground in the Donbas. In America, the political fight over the utility of continued financial aid for Ukraine has reached a fever pitch.

Taken together, those factors paint a bleak picture for Ukraine in its war with Russia, which will enter its third year this weekend. Staunch defenders of Ukraine, previously optimistic about the country’s long-term chances, now see a dark future.

“I have to say, I’ve stopped being optimistic,” said Jim Townsend, who was deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy during the Obama administration. “Right now, Putin is on an offensive in three directions. He’s not sitting in his trenches. He’s actually moving and taking advantage of the Ukrainians being low on ammunition of all types, particularly artillery.

“It’s a race,” Mr. Townsend said in an interview. “It’s a race between Ukraine trying to get more equipment and more supplies from both Europe and the United States in order to stop whatever Russian offensives are going on right now, and to plan to reconstitute themselves to launch their own offensive, maybe next year.”

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In Congress, the future of U.S. aid to Ukraine has never been more in doubt. The White House this week pressed House Republicans to vote on the Senate’s $95 billion foreign aid package, which includes more than $60 billion for Ukraine.

“There is no magic solution to this absent Congress appropriating funding,” White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters this week.

Conservatives argue that the White House must provide a clear road map for the end of the Russia-Ukraine war. They also want enhanced security measures at the southern border to be a part of any foreign assistance package.

Advantage: Russia

With momentum on his side, Mr. Putin is looking to press the advantage. Russian forces this week notched a significant logistical and symbolic victory by capturing the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka.

It was the first major win of an ambitious Russian offensive targeting the Kharkiv-Luhansk sector in eastern Ukraine and other key regions.

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SEE ALSO: Biden meets with Navalny’s widow and daughter in Calif. ahead of new Russian sanctions

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“Russian forces are conducting a cohesive multi-axis offensive operation in pursuit of an operationally significant objective for nearly the first time in over a year and a half of campaigning in Ukraine,” researchers with the Institute for the Study of War wrote this week.

Mr. Putin and his generals have embarked on that offensive as Ukrainian forces run low on ammunition. One Ukrainian artillery commander, identified only by his first name, Valerie, told The Associated Press this week that “we have nothing to fight with.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has partially blamed that ammunition shortage on the West and said the loss at Avdiivka shows how dire the situation has become.

Ukraine has surprised the world before with its performance against the Russian army, but specialists say the momentum may have shifted irreversibly.

“There is no foreseeable pathway toward a battlefield victory for Ukraine, even if they had some F-16s or we gave them some longer-range” missile systems, Charles A. Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said during a virtual panel discussion hosted by the think tank this week.

Putin eliminating his foes

If Mr. Putin is confident about his prospects in Ukraine, he is even more comfortable at home. The longtime Russian leader seems destined to cruise to victory in next month’s presidential election, which most Western observers consider little more than a sham.

A year ago, some analysts thought Mr. Putin could face a true test from the political right in Russia amid deep anger over his management of the Ukraine war.

That anger came to a head in June when Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the mercenary Wagner Group, led his forces on a march to Moscow in what looked to be a coup attempt.

Prigozhin ultimately called off the march and cut a deal with Mr. Putin. Just two months later, Prigozhin died when his private jet exploded during a flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Mr. Putin denied any involvement, but observers generally believe the Kremlin played a role in Prigozhin’s death.

Prigozhin represented a far different threat to Mr. Putin’s power than Mr. Navalny, but both men met the same fate.

Mr. Navalny, one of Mr. Putin’s fiercest critics and the longtime public face of the Russian resistance, died in an Arctic prison last week under circumstances that immediately cast suspicion on Mr. Putin.

Mr. Navalny’s wife, Yulia, has taken up the mantle of resistance leader in Russia, though it remains to be seen whether she can rebuild a movement that the Kremlin has tried to systematically dismantle.

For Mr. Putin personally and Russia as a whole, the past year has been a remarkable turnaround. Analysts say it’s clear they were counted out far too early.

“The Russians showed in World War II that they can come back. And they did,” Mr. Townsend said. “They came back and rolled through Berlin in 1945. You wouldn’t have thought that in 1943 as the Nazis were at the gates of Stalingrad. People are starting to know better.”