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“The death toll from the Ukraine war’s deadliest attack on civilians at one location since last spring reached 45 at an apartment building a Russian missile blasted in the southeastern city of Dnipro, officials said Tuesday.” AP News
“The U.S. is finalizing a massive package of military aid for Ukraine that U.S. officials say is likely to total as much as $2.6 billion. It’s expected to include for the first time nearly 100 Stryker combat vehicles and at least 50 Bradley armored vehicles to allow Ukrainian forces to move more quickly and securely on the front lines in the war with Russia — but not the tanks that Ukraine has sought…
“Ukraine has for months sought to be supplied with heavier tanks, including the U.S. Abrams and the German Leopard 2 tanks, but Western leaders have been treading carefully. The United Kingdom announced last week that it will send Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine, but the U.S. and Germany have held off.” AP News
Many on both sides urge the US and Europe to provide Ukraine with the equipment needed to win the war:
“As the war’s first anniversary looms, so does a new moment of decision: Will the U.S. and Europe let the war grind on as a brutal stalemate, or will they provide enough military aid so Ukraine can take back its territory and win the war?… The Biden Administration is leaking that the aid it plans to announce this week won’t include tanks. Neither will the U.S. offer the Army tactical missile system, which would allow the Ukrainians to strike targets from afar…
“There is no moral or strategic case for giving Ukraine just enough weapons to bleed for months with no chance of victory. The stronger case is to help Ukraine win rapidly with more arms and by scrapping U.S. restrictions on how Ukraine wages war. The U.S. has said Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory are off-limits, and the practical effect has been to let Moscow concentrate forces on Eastern Ukraine without having to defend some of its own depots and bases. Why should a dictator who rolled over a foreign border be free to claim his territory as sacrosanct?”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“Near-term survival alone is not a sufficient strategy for Ukraine, and therefore for the West. Mr. Putin, content to play a long game in hope of wearing down U.S. and European public opinion and resolve, regards time as his ally. If he is right — and there is reason to worry he is — Western policies and provisions that maintain the status quo are a poor bet. And make no mistake: Mr. Putin is betting the house — his imperial ambitions, his legacy, his own political survival…
“[German] Chancellor Olaf Scholz is reluctant, but also publicly on record as awaiting Washington’s input. Delivering Leopard tanks to Ukraine, he said earlier this month, depends ‘especially [on discussions] with our transatlantic partner, with the United States of America.’ That amounts to a plea for stepped-up U.S. leadership. The question is whether Mr. Biden, who has vowed not to permit a Russian victory and pledged to stick with Kyiv ‘as long as it takes,’ is prepared to demonstrate even more resolve as the war in Ukraine approaches what is likely to be its decisive moment.”
Editorial Board, Washington Post
“So far, the United States has promised about 50 Bradley fighting vehicles, Germany has pledged about 40 Marder fighting vehicles and Britain has pledged 14 Challenger tanks. That’s not even close to the 300 tanks that Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the Ukrainian commander, has requested…
“More mobile armor might be on the way with the possibility that Germany will release scores of Leopard tanks and Washington will provide Stryker combat vehicles. I hope so. This year might prove decisive in Ukraine. Having wisely urged Ukraine to adopt maneuver warfare against [Russian commander Valery] Gerasimov’s battered, bunkered forces, the United States and its allies shouldn’t support this effort halfway. The West has a strategy: So, go for it.”
David Ignatius, Washington Post
“The West — including successive US administrations — deserve part of the blame for encouraging Putin to go big. From Obama’s non-enforcement of his ‘red line’ in Syria through Trump’s lambasting of NATO to Biden’s ill-conceived withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the message received in the Kremlin was overwhelmingly one of America’s lack of determination and interest in the wider world…
“Today, Putin has no good options. A Russian military victory, however partial, seems out of reach. If the mercenary Wagner Group has come close to encircling the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk in the first weeks of January, it has done so at a dramatic casualty rate, with possibly as many as 20,000 Russians killed or wounded… [But] The fact that Putin cannot win is no reason for self-congratulation — quite the contrary. Every day that the West holds back its military assistance, from tanks through artillery to fighter jets and air defenses, Ukraine’s civilians will continue to die at the hands of Russian invaders. It is past time this stopped.”
Dalibor Rohac, New York Post
Other opinions below.
“It is essential, however, that in providing Ukraine with the support it needs, Washington does it in a way that provides full accountability to the American people and neither adds major unfunded liabilities for the U.S. taxpayer nor consumes resources required to counter the People’s Republic of China. Retaining the ability to confront Russia and China simultaneously will require some of our European allies to do more toward supporting the effort in Ukraine. This will enable the U.S. to shoulder the bulk of the load deterring China in the Pacific.”James Jay Carafano and Victoria Coates, Fox News
Some argue, “What net benefit are the American people deriving from these costly investments? All we know for sure is that some people in the military-industrial complex are getting extremely wealthy at the moment, and that trend will continue as long as we keep flushing all of our military hardware down the rathole in Ukraine. If China decides this would be an ideal time to cross the Strait of Taiwan, do we even have the resources left to help the Taiwanese fight back? We should be calling on Kevin McCarthy to demand some answers to these questions or simply seal up the piggy bank and end this circus.”
Jazz Shaw, Hot Air
“Why not arrange for a consortium of countries to send Leopard 2s to Ukraine? Some 16 nations — 15 in Europe plus Canada — have about 2,000 of the big cats in their own stocks. Letting some combination of these countries supply Ukraine as a club would solve several problems at once. First, some armies have too few Leopards in working order to pass them on without weakening their own fighting ability. But a consortium could easily find enough tanks, spare parts and ammunition to give the Ukrainians whatever they need…
“Second, such a show of unity would vastly complicate any attempt by Putin to retaliate against any individual member of the alliance — with more sabotage and hybrid warfare or even full force. He’d in effect be facing the West as a whole. With his bully mentality, he’d be more likely to shrink from such might and resolve than to escalate…
“All along in this war, it has been wrong for Western leaders such as Scholz to let Putin cow them into guessing where his ‘red lines’ may or may not be. Putin attacked a smaller neighbor without provocation, shattering all norms of human decency and international order. He must be defeated.”
Andreas Kluth, Bloomberg
