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Ukraine will look to launch a new counterattack in 2025 after receiving $61 billion in US military aid to help it prevent Russia from making additional gains this year, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said.
Speaking at the FT Weekend festival in Washington on Saturday, Sullivan said he still expects “a Russian advance in the coming period” on the battlefield, despite the new US funding package approved last month, because “you can’t flip the switch right away.” “. .
But he said that with new help from Washington, Kiev would have the ability to “hold out” and “ensure Ukraine’s resistance to Russian attack” over the course of 2024.
Referring to a war scenario next year, Sullivan said Ukraine intends to “move forward to reclaim territory seized by the Russians.”
His comments about a potential counterattack by Ukraine represent the White House’s clearest expression of how it sees the conflict developing if President Joe Biden wins re-election in November.
Any new attack by Ukraine in 2025 would depend on more funding from Congress and White House approval.
But Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee, has been skeptical of aid to Ukraine and has vowed to try to end the conflict quickly and seek a negotiated settlement.
Ukrainian officials expressed hope that the country’s armed forces could turn things around next year.
In a letter to Ukrainians marking the third Orthodox Easter since Russia’s large-scale invasion in February 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked soldiers on the front line in Ukraine and said Russia had broken “all [bible] “The Commandments, they claimed our home, they came to kill us.”
“God has a chevron with the Ukrainian flag on his shoulder [and] “With such an ally, life will surely triumph over death,” he said on Sunday.
Kiev residents lined up in city churches to receive Easter blessings, as fighting continued on the southern and eastern front lines and Russia continued to target key infrastructure with missile and drone bombardments.
Attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have caused $1 billion in losses since March 22, according to German Energy Minister German Galoshenko.
The delay in the arrival of the US aid package, most of which is military, as well as the current shortage of manpower in Ukraine, have weakened Ukraine’s ability to withstand.
Since February, Russia has used the strategic advantage it gained after seizing the Donetsk town of Avdiivka to advance on more than half a dozen villages in the region. The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Sunday that its forces took control of the village of Osheretin in Donetsk.
While Ukraine said it was preparing for a renewed counterattack, its officials also said May could be one of the most difficult months of the war as it waits for US-supplied weapons to reach the front line.
Speaking to the German newspaper Bild last month, Zelensky said there was a plan for another counterattack but it was conditional on more weapons, including American weapons.
But while much-needed supplies and weapons are on their way to the front lines after US aid was approved last month, resolving Ukraine’s personnel shortage is crucial to boosting its chances against Russia.
Many Ukrainian men did not want to join the mobilization campaign that began nearly a year ago, due to fear of weak leaders and a lack of weapons.
The Ukrainian leadership is trying to resolve these issues with a combination of more liberal recruitment methods and better conditions for soldiers. But it remains to be seen what effect this and the new aid packages have on the mood.
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