NYT: As Russia advances, U.S. fears Ukraine has entered a ‘grim phase’

Russian troops have advanced in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. They have clawed back more than a third of the territory that Ukrainian forces seized in a surprise offensive in the Kursk region of western Russia this year. The number of Russian drone strikes across Ukraine has increased from 350 in July to 750 in August and 1,500 in September.

Gone is the Russian force that repeatedly stumbled as it invaded Ukraine in 2022. The Russian military, according to a senior U.S. military official, has evolved and is “on the march,” writes ‘The New York Times’.

As a result, some American intelligence agencies and military officials are pessimistic about Ukraine’s ability to stop Russian advances as Kyiv tries to find ways to build up forces exhausted by nearly three years of war.

The most important immediate development for Ukraine, however, will not be on the battlefield but at the ballot box in the United States. Former President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have laid out very different visions for future American support.

Mr. Trump has promised to bring the war to a quick end, and his running mate, Senator JD Vance, has outlined a peace plan that looks a lot like one advanced by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

Ms. Harris, on the other hand, has vowed to fight on, warning that if Russia was not stopped in Ukraine, its forces could attack NATO.

The election, and its uncertain outcome, is weighing heavily on Ukrainians.

After a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv last week, American officials said the Ukrainian leader looked worn and stressed, anxious about his troops’ battlefield setbacks as well as the U.S. elections.

In Ukraine, morale is eroding in the face of the Russian drive and a fear that Western support and the flow of supplies are coming to an end.

“It is very difficult at the front now,” said Yevhen Strokan, a senior lieutenant and commander of a combat drone platoon in the 206th Territorial Defense Battalion. “There is a lack of everything, there are few people, there are more Russians and they have more weapons.”

The pessimism extends to Western capitals.

“Everyone is feeling bad across the board,” said Frederick W. Kagan, a scholar with the American Enterprise Institute who has advised the U.S. military. “It has been a very long, hard year and the Russians are still grinding forward.”

Earlier this year, Ukrainian troops were struggling with shortages of ammunition supplies amid U.S. delays in approving more assistance.

But American military officials say weapons supplies are no longer Ukraine’s main disadvantage. Ukraine’s biggest shortcoming now is troops, U.S. officials said.

Ukrainian officials have struggled to put in place a military draft that brings in enough troops. The country has hesitated to lower the conscription age, worried about the long-term demographic impact. Ukraine has limited itself to what one official called a more “democratic and measured” response to the shortage of troops, but as a result it is running low on soldiers.

Ukraine has used cellphone numbers, email addresses and other electronic means to get additional people to register for the military, U.S. officials said. It has also used more coercive means — like dragging people from concert halls — to find and enlist people eligible for the draft.

The Pentagon assesses that Ukraine has enough soldiers to fight for six to 12 more months, one official said. After that, he said, it will face a steep shortage.

Ukraine diverted some of its newly created brigades to support the incursion in Kursk instead of using them as originally planned to defend eastern and southern Ukraine or to build up reserves for an expected counteroffensive in 2025, Pentagon officials say.

Russia’s success is partly a result of a shifting recruiting message, as it now relentlessly tells would-be soldiers that the war in Ukraine is really a fight against NATO, U.S. officials said. Russian bonuses have also drastically increased.

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