“Ukraine’s chances of victory in its two-year battle to repel Russia’s brutal invasion appear to be fading.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, is warning with increasing urgency that his country could lose the war if it doesn’t get $60 billion in US aid that Republicans in Congress are refusing to release.
“Can we hold our ground? No,” Zelenskyy recently told PBS of Ukraine’s prospects should it not get the funding.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, was just as blunt in a recent interview.
“Give us the damn Patriots,” he told Politico in March, referring to the US-made air defense systems used to defend Russian missiles, which are pummelling Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.
On the front line in east and south Ukraine, reports say the situation is increasingly desperate, with Russia outfiring Ukraine at a rate of three to one. Parts of the front line are also dangerously close to collapse.
Senior Ukrainian military officials, talking to Politico, said that Russia could break through wherever it focuses its anticipated summer offensive.
Russia will likely be able to “penetrate the front line and to crash it in some parts,” they told the outlet.
“I would say the conditions now are probably more favorable for a Russian breakthrough than at any time since the opening stages of the war,” Bryden Spurling, an analyst with the RAND Corporation, told Business Insider.
The aid block is also making it increasingly difficult for Ukraine to defend its cities and critical infrastructure, such as power stations, from waves of Russian missile and drone attacks.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukraine-trouble-already-mdash-now-151430041.html