As the war drags on, Ukraine has managed to stall Russian gains over the past month thanks in large part to continued support from American and European allies and help on the ground from partisans.
Ukraine has recently been able to stem Russian advances and force Russia to suffer heavy casualties, with up to 500 Russian soldiers killed or injured every day, according to some estimates.
John Spencer, a retired army officer and director of urban warfare studies for the Madison Policy Forum research institute, said that while Ukraine had lost tactical ground in some areas, its troops had managed to weaken the Russian army.
“They’ve also made the Russians spend resources that they can’t replenish,” Spencer said. “You don’t want to say they win the war because there’s so much fighting to do, but from every metric you can think of, especially geopolitically and militarily, they’re making superior gains. “
Ukraine got another boost on Thursday when defense ministers from 26 countries, including Britain and Denmark, pledged about $1.55 billion in military aid to Ukraine. Ben Wallace, Britain’s defense minister, said the aid would include additional multiple-launch rocket systems and long-range missiles.
“We never tire,” Wallace said of his country’s continued support for Ukraine.
Morten Bodskov, Denmark’s defense minister, said his country would not only help with weapons, but would also help with military training. Mr Bodskov said Denmark’s position on supporting Ukraine is “unwavering”.
Ahead of the aid announcement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the 26 countries and said the weapons sent to Ukraine should be “such airpower and range as Russia would be forced to finally think about a peaceful solution”.
The aid, which Mr. Zelensky has repeatedly called for since the start of the war, comes on top of another package from the United States that was announced earlier this week. The Pentagon said Monday it would send more munitions in a new shipment of up to $1 billion worth of weapons and supplies. With that, the United States will have sent more than $9 billion in aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded the country on February 24.
Mr Spencer said maintaining such continued support from Western countries has taken ‘as much fighting as real fighting against Russian forces, until it shows the world that they are fighting a just war’.
“They made history by rallying one of the greatest gatherings of democracies,” Mr Spencer said.
Support for the country has not only taken the form of aid programs, but also help on the ground in the form of partisans, resistance fighters who help the Ukrainian army in Russian-occupied territory.
At least five fighter-bombers and three multi-role jets were “almost certainly destroyed or severely damaged” in explosions at an air base in Crimea this week, according to a British military intelligence report on Friday. The explosions were all the more infuriating for Russia as Crimea – which Moscow annexed in 2014 – had largely escaped fighting since February and the base was far from any recognizable front lines.
A senior Ukrainian official said the attacks were carried out with the help of partisans, but the government did not take responsibility for the attack. Mr Zelensky, in an address after the blasts, criticized officials for disclosing details of the attacks, adding that now was “definitely not the time for vanity and loud statements”.
“The less concrete details you give about our defense plans, the better it will be for the implementation of those defense plans,” he said.