US allies fear defeat as critical war aid for Ukraine stalls on both sides of Atlantic

The standoff over critical aid from the United States and Europe has Ukraine’s allies contemplating something they’ve refused to imagine since the earliest days of Russia’s invasion—the fact that Vladimir Putin may win. With more than US$110 billion in assistance stuck in political disputes in Washington and Brussels, how long Kyiv will be able to hold back Russian forces and defend Ukraine’s cities, power plants and ports against missile attacks is increasingly in doubt. Beyond the catastrophic consequences for Ukraine if it loses the war, some European allies have begun to quietly consider the impact of a failure for North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. They’re reassessing the risks an emboldened Russia would pose to alliance members in the east, according to people familiar with the internal conversations. The ripple effects would be felt around the world, the people said, as US partners and allies questioned just how reliable Washington’s promises of defence would be. The impact of such a strategic setback would be far deeper than that caused by the spectacle of the botched US pull-out from Afghanistan in 2021, they said. And that’s leaving aside the prospect that Donald Trump might win next year’s US presidential election and realise his public pledges to pull back from major alliances, including NATO, and make a deal with Putin over Ukraine. The growing sense of alarm has slipped into leaders’ public statements. They’ve taken on an increasingly shrill tone as backers of the aid exhort their opponents not to hold the vital assistance hostage to domestic political priorities, something which rarely happened in previous debates. “If Ukraine doesn’t have support from the EU and the US, then Putin will win,” Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said last week at the European Union summit, where leaders failed to overcome growing opposition to next year’s €50 billion (US$55 billion) aid package and only barely managed to approve the largely symbolic gesture of opening the way to membership for Ukraine sometime in the future. In the US, President Biden last week pledged to back Ukraine for “as long as we can,” a rhetorical shift from previous vows to do so for “as long as it takes”. Republicans in the Congress have refused to approve US$61 billion of support for next year until Biden gives in to their demands for tougher policies on the US southern border. So far, efforts to reach a deal have failed. Monday, the Pentagon warned that the money for new weapons for Ukraine will run out December 30 if legislators don’t act. In addition to growing public apprehension about the cost of support for Ukraine, the disappointing results of Kyiv’s counteroffensive this summer – its troops made only modest gains against Russia’s heavily entrenched forces – have triggered questions about whether Ukraine’s publicly declared goal of retaking all the territory occupied by Putin is realistic. Recently, allied officials have sought to highlight Kyiv’s more recent military successes, including its successful strikes on the Russian navy in the Black Sea, rather than the sweeping advances on the ground seen in the first year of war. “There is increasing concern about lack of movement on aid for Ukraine on both sides of the Atlantic and frustration that there is this stagnation with dire battlefield consequences,” said Kristine Berzina, managing director at the German Marshall Fund in Washington. “The possibility of Ukraine losing additional territory and even its sovereignty –is still on the table.” Russia is likely to push to take more territory and destroy more infrastructure if Ukraine doesn’t get the weapons it needs to defend itself, according to European officials. Unable to defend itself, Ukraine might be forced to accept a ceasefire deal on Russia’s terms, they said. Ukraine’s backers in both the EU and US contend aid is likely to be approved in some form early next year. But that’s unlikely to yield a major breakthrough on the battlefield, officials said. Beyond that, the outlook is increasingly murky, even as the stalemate on the ground makes it increasingly clear that the fight could go on for years to come. In the Baltic states, officials are already telling the public to be ready for the next war because Putin’s forces aren’t going to be destroyed in Ukraine. Despite Biden’s public assurances, questions about whether the US and other allies would actually put their troops at risk to defend tiny countries that were once part of the Soviet Union are growing. Other Western officials said it would likely take Putin at least several years to make up for the tremendous losses his military has taken in Ukraine, let alone threaten NATO’s much more capable forces. But the earlier confidence that the invasion would be a ‘strategic defeat’ for the Russian leader has faded, replaced in some quarters by a growing sense that Putin’s bet that he can outlast the US and its allies may prove right.