The new aid packages will not enable Ukraine to seize the initiative and go back onto the offensive. One reason for this is that Russia has achieved air supremacy in many areas while ground based air defences will remain inadequate. Another is that a war-weary Ukraine simply doesn’t have enough troops and after more than two years hard fighting seems reluctant to launch the major mobilisation it needs.
Russia has a rapidly growing wartime economy and has now built up huge force levels that it is willing to sacrifice to achieve Putin’s goals. If Moscow is able to achieve significant success in the summer, perhaps including taking Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, there will be no appetite for more Western spending come the winter.
It looks like, as in previous wars, Russia will have begun badly but finished well through a level of determination so badly lacking among Ukraine’s allies in the West.
