General David H.Petraeus, US Army ret.

16 April 2024:

The great team at the Institute for the Study of War has provided a stark assessment of the current situation in Ukraine and the urgent, critical need for a resumption of US assistance for Ukraine. Here are the key parts of it:

The current US debate about providing additional military assistance to Ukraine is based in part on the assumption that the war will remain stalemated regardless of US actions.
That assumption is false. The Russians are breaking out of positional warfare and beginning to restore maneuver to the battlefield because of the delays in the provision of US military assistance to Ukraine. Ukraine cannot hold the present lines now without the rapid resumption of US assistance, particularly air defense and artillery that only the US can provide rapidly and at scale.
Lack of air defense has exposed Ukrainian front-line units to Russian aircraft that are now dropping thousands of bombs on Ukrainian defensive positions for the first time in this war. Ukrainian artillery shortages are letting the Russians use armored columns without suffering prohibitive losses for the first time since 2022.
The Russians are pressing their advantage and advancing slowly but steadily on several sectors of the front. Since the beginning of this year, Russian forces have seized over 360 square kilometers – an area the size of Detroit.
Russian advances will accelerate absent urgent American action. US policymakers must internalize the reality that further delaying or stopping American military assistance will lead to dramatic Russian gains later in 2024 and in 2025 and, ultimately, to Russian victory.
The United States thus has only two real choices today. It can quickly resume providing military aid to let Ukraine stabilize the front lines near the current locations. Or it can let the Russians defeat the Ukrainian military and drive toward the NATO borders from the Black Sea to central Poland.
There is no third option. The risks of a Russian attack against NATO in the near future would rise dramatically if the US allows Russia to defeat Ukraine now, and the challenge of defending the Baltic States in particular could become almost insurmountable.
These long-term risks and costs far outweigh the short-term price of resuming assistance to Ukraine.
Russian victory in Ukraine would have devastating consequences for the defense of NATO. Ukrainian success, even if Ukraine just holds the frontlines roughly where they now are, on the other hand, would make a successful Russian attack on Poland or the Baltic States much harder and riskier. It would dramatically strengthen NATO’s ability to deter and defend against future Russian aggression.
The map below shows the situation and enormous threat to NATO if Russia prevails in Ukraine.

ukrainewar

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Comment by J. Scott Christian

If US Congress doesn’t get their head out and immediately resume broadband funding of #ukraine military, this IS our future.

You’ll note I don’t say “may be our future.”

Why? Because I know Putin personally and very well. I know his colleagues and senior military. I’ve been a deep-dive Sovietologist and Russianist for > 45 years, and have lived there multiple times.

And I’ve never seen anything so clearly in my 45+ years.

We either get our shit together rikki-tikk, or this WILL BE our future.

The U.S. will be in a world war. Your kids and grandkids ARE going to fight it. Many of them will be killed or maimed…

And your chances of being on the business end of a nuclear exchange go from nearly zero to about 40%, depending on where you live.

Is this clear enough for everyone?