"If weapons aren’t delivered fast enough, it makes it extremely difficult for Ukraine to push back against Russian gains," says Rachel Rizzo of the Atlantic Council, who adds that it's "clear" that "time is on Russia’s side." It has what Ukraine lacks: the manpower and war matériel to "grind out a long war along a massive front." Estonian diplomat Kaimo Kuusk says the West should have provided more munitions "[the] day before yesterday."
Those are but two assessments offered to The Washington Post, which tersely recaps the dread: "There are palpable concerns that the West dithered too long." In response to "alarm over recent incremental Russian advances" — plus Moscow's increased military aid from Iran and fresh financing from China — the United States and its European allies are working to elevate their support for Kyiv.
But Ukrainian officials and Western analysts are saying "the help is simply taking too long." The aid should have arrived "yesterday," since Ukraine's counteroffensive begins tomorrow. Separately, in the east, Russian forces have ramped up their human-wave attacks on the city of Avdiivka, which the Ukrainians say is becoming another Bakhmut. In both the counteroffensive and the Donbas, this war hangs in the balance.
Meanwhile, the West's promised military assistance is dragging. America's Abrams tanks will arrive sometime in the fall, months after Ukraine's spring offensive. Germany's shipment of perhaps 70 Leopard tanks is being delayed by checkups and repairs, since these particular tanks are decades old. Poland and Slovakia will provide Soviet-made fighter jets — says a European diplomat: This proves that such planes are "not a taboo, and will not lead to a World War III" — hoping that other nations would join them, but none so far.
And so Ukraine is still fighting with what the Post calls a "hodgepodge" of Soviet-era munitions, most of them captured from Russian forces. And stunningly, some analysts in the West are still defending its slow, piecemeal provisionings. It's true, they concede, that as a result Ukraine has taken a nearly unbearable beating in casualties and structural damage. But hey, they "did as much as [they] could while successfully avoiding direct conflict with Russia."
That argument bears little scrutiny. Take, for instance, the protracted, tortured debate over whether the U.S. should supply F-16 fighters. Ukraine has said it needs them for long-range strikes on Russian ammunition depots and logistics posts. Because in response to the U.S.'s long-range HIMARS — the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System — the Russians have simply moved their depots and bases beyond the system's 50-mile range.
F-16 fighter jets would mean an "increase in range," which would "automatically move the front line, and the enemy’s capabilities will radically diminish," says Ukraine's ground forces commander. As we know, the U.S. has refused the jets because, see above: "avoiding direct conflict with Russia." But U.S. HIMARS increased Ukraine's long-range strike capabilities and therefore posed direct conflict with the Russians. Which, of course, didn't happen, because the Russian dictator is not that crazy. So, except in effective range, what's the difference between F-16s and HIMARS?
Against that argument, the Pentagon adds another. Its policy chief says, in the Post's words, that the "manufacture and delivery of new planes would take many years and even shipment of existing aircraft would take at least 18 months, as would training of Ukrainian personnel." All along, this has been the Johnny-come-lately argument. It ignores that had the West, alternatively, been Johnny-on-the-spot months ago, when Kyiv began asking, Ukraine would now just about be ready to take possession, fully trained.
Ukrainian authorities, the Post article, this post and David Ignatius's recent column have for months been asking the question: Are Ukraine's sovereignty, freedom and democracy of true, unequaled importance to the West? As they should be? My answer, yesterday, was that "We have pretty much nickeled-and-dimed Ukraine, with a little here and then a little more there. Every progression made in the firepower we've offered has been agonizingly ponderous."
The justifying reason has been that old, familiar, and biggest of bugbears: Vladimir Putin might get mad. And Vlad has nukes. His use of them we cannot risk, even though there is no risk that he'd use them. Hence ours is a strange, convoluted, rather circular self-justification for limited intervention in Ukraine, which in the world of realpolitik, means the West's intervention in saving itself against the now-united, authoritarian powers of Russia and China — and Iran, which makes it a triple axis.
Ring any bells? It will if you're up on your 20th-century history of Germany, Italy and Japan's authoritarianism, the original, fascistic Triple Axis. Neither were they content with the world order and Western civilization's freedom and democracy. They aggressed against all three, and Russia's fascism has merely picked up where they left off.