As noted, events are moving so fast that it is hard to keep up with Russia’s war and Washington’s changing positions regarding Ukraine and Europe.

Below, I set out two articles that appeared on the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal relating to the situation and the American withdrawal of support.  They are not optimistic reports, but I believe well worth the read.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The America-Sized Hole in Ukraine’s War Effort

Defenders can hold out against Russians for now, but impact of U.S. weapons and intelligence halt will ‘cascade and compound’ over time [Holding out is not the same as holding ground RAM]

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By James Marson, Alistair MacDonald, Michael R. Gordon | March 8, 2025 9:00 pm ET

KYIV, Ukraine—The Russian army was advancing relentlessly in northeastern Ukraine in the summer of 2022 when the U.S. tipped the scales with new weapons and crucial battlefield intelligence.

The superior accuracy and greater range of M777 howitzers, supplied by the U.S., hit back against Russia’s mostly Soviet-designed artillery. Then U.S. intelligence tipped off Ukraine’s generals that Russia had moved several battalions to another front. Accurate U.S.-made rocket artillery struck Russian fuel depots and weapons stores, leaving the Russian army short of supplies ahead of a rapid Ukrainian counteroffensive that retook dozens of towns.

Now, with Russia’s military again grinding its way forward, the Trump administration has halted weapons deliveries and intelligence sharing that have been critical to Ukraine’s resistance against a three-year invasion by its giant neighbor that has killed tens of thousands and razed dozens of cities. [Hopefully no one must be reminded Russia’s war started in 2014 – with the invasion and occupation of Crimea and the Donbas together with Russia’s murders, rapes, abduction of children, oppression and torture chambers.  RAM]

The impact of the halt—which U.S. officials described as a temporary pause designed to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to negotiate with Russia—will be limited at first, but is likely to grow over time as Ukraine’s stocks of U.S. ammunition run down, and weapons systems cannot be repaired or replaced, officials and analysts said. [And the U.S.-caused vulnerability leads to unnecessary killing and wounding.  RAM]

The main immediate impact will be felt from the cutoff of intelligence, which will constrain Ukraine’s ability to accurately target long-range strikes to knock out Russian troops and equipment before they reach the battlefield. On Friday, Maxar Technologies said that the U.S. has cut off Ukrainian access to the satellite images that the company supplies through an American government program—imagery used by Ukrainian forces to plan and mount operations, particularly using explosive drones.

A lack of fresh arms deliveries will take longer to have an impact but the effect would be broader. A dwindling stock of long-range air-defense missiles would erode Ukraine’s ability to intercept Russian ballistic missiles targeting cities. A lack of spares could see its top-performing infantry fighting vehicles and howitzers fall out of use. Although the immediate reaction from front-line soldiers was one of weary resilience, morale is likely to suffer as the withdrawal of support from Ukraine’s main backer saps confidence.

“These impacts will cascade and compound,” said a U.S. official.

“Russia is using missiles and weapons from all over the world, from North Korea to Iran, to fire from all directions into Ukraine. But we have limited Ukraine in using our weapons to fire back,” said retired Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, who served as the top NATO commander from 2013 to 2016 and has been a strong supporter of Ukraine. [And a key member of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation’s Friends of Ukraine Network (FOUN).]

Top U.S. officials are meeting on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia with their Ukrainian counterparts to set the stage for potential peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, raising the possibility that the pause in assistance could end soon.  

Whatever happens, leaders in Kyiv said that Ukraine will keep up the fight. The Biden administration increased supplies of ammunition ahead of Trump’s inauguration in anticipation of a potential cutoff. Ukraine makes more than half of its own weaponry, including game-changing drones. European Union members, which along with the U.K. have roughly matched U.S. military support to Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion, met Thursday to agree on a surge in military spending that could allow them to offer more support to Ukraine.

“It’s no longer 2022,” Zelensky said in a video address Tuesday. “Our resilience is higher now. We have the means to defend ourselves.”

The Kremlin has welcomed the pause to U.S. deliveries, which came just as Ukraine has significantly slowed Russian advances in recent weeks. [We are supposed to believe this is no coincidence. RAM] Russian President Vladimir Putin is far short of his ultimate goal of subjugating Ukraine and is struggling to achieve his shorter-term objective of occupying Ukraine’s two easternmost regions. [But, given the cratering of his economy and the trashing of his ground forces during this war, he has not been pushed by Washington to end this war on Ukraine’s and what should be Washington’s terms.  RAM]

Ukraine’s defenses have inflicted heavy losses on Russian forces as they have nibbled off small pieces of land along the 800-mile front lines.

Ukraine’s defensive strategy relies on eliminating Russian troops and weaponry before they reach Ukrainian front-line trenches, which are manned by increasingly exhausted and thinned-out infantry.

More than half of front-line strikes are carried out by small explosive drones manufactured in Ukraine, which accurately target Russian armored vehicles and infantry.

The use of drones has offset Russia’s artillery advantage. Russia has more guns and more shells, bolstered in recent months by supplies from North Korea.

The U.S. accounts for over half of Ukraine’s foreign supplies of the important 155mm artillery shells, according to one person familiar with the matter. Even with U.S. shells, Ukraine currently is able to fire one for every three Russia does, that person said.

“We already don’t have parity with Russia in weapons and ammunition,” said Ukrainian Army Lt. Dmytro Yanok, who commands an M777 battery. “If the U.S. ends ammunition deliveries for good, the situation will become much worse.”

Franz-Stefan Gady, a Vienna-based defense analyst, said that could necessitate tactical withdrawals in some areas, although he believes the front can hold in the near term.

“Overall it’s not catastrophic,” he said. “The dependence on the U.S. is much less in 2025 than it would have been in 2022 or 2023.”

Ukraine’s military relies heavily on the U.S. for rockets and missiles that can strike accurately behind Russian lines. The U.S. provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or Himars, to Ukraine in 2022 that fire Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System rockets, or GMLRS with a range of about 45 miles. GMLRS strikes have destroyed Russian command posts, ammunition dumps, fuel stores and groups of infantry. It is a lack of these rockets which perhaps will affect Ukraine most, followed by artillery shells and air-defense missiles, said a former senior U.S. official involved in supplying Ukraine.

Himars also launch longer-range ATACMS, which can shoot up to 186 miles. These ballistic missiles have been particularly effective at striking Russian airfields, command centers and supply lines in occupied Ukraine, and since November in parts of Russia.

Himars can fire the long-range, near all-weather ATACMS guided missiles.

Armored cab for increased crew protection

Carries one launch pod containing either six Guided MLRS (GMLRS)/MLRS rockets or one ATACMS missile.

In service: 2005

Origin: U.S.

Crew: 3

Max speed: 53 mph

Firing range: 19.9 to 186.4 miles

Weight: 10.9 tons

Sources: United States Army Acquisition Support Center; Military-Today
Jemal R. Brinson/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The result of those strikes is to relieve pressure on front-line trenches as they reduce the quantity and speed with which Russia can deploy men and equipment to the battlefield.

“If they are not able to attrit the Russians before they come into the battle zones, then it just makes it harder on their army. They need to be able to kill Russians deeply and at range precisely,” said Breedlove, the former top NATO commander.

During a rapid operation to seize a chunk of Russia’s Kursk province last fall, Ukraine used GMLRS to strike a column of Russian armored vehicles rushing to the battlefield and hit bridges to cut supplies to front-line troops.

The Army Tactical Missile Systems’ ballistic missiles come in a standard version, Block 1, and a model with a longer range, Block 1A.

ATACMS missiles

Block 1A

Range: 43.5-186.4 miles

Payload: 300

APAM bomblets

Size

Block 1 (Shown)

Range: 16-103 miles

Payload: 950

APAM bomblets

Missile Guidance System - Provides navigation, guidance, autopilot and internal communications functions.

Control System - Positions the missile fins, provides electrical power in flight and supports selected pyrotechnic functions.

Approx. 950 bomblets

Designed to inflict casualties by blast and fragmentation.

Sources: United States Army Acquisition Support Center; Federation of American Scientists; Collective Awareness to UXO; Missile Threat
Jemal R. Brinson/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Long-range strikes depend on U.S. intelligence, which helps determine targets and provide accurate location data, so the intelligence cutoff will affect strikes even before ammunition is depleted.

Ukraine was already running low on ATACMS at the end of last year.

“We’ve not seen a single confirmed ATACMS strike into Russia since Donald Trump was inaugurated,” said George Barros, an analyst at the Institute at the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank. [And, we proudly say, a former U.S.-Ukraine Foundation intern. RAM]

The loss of U.S. ammunition would be compounded by the gradual degradation of weapons already supplied if they cannot be repaired or replaced.

The M777, a howitzer designed for the U.S. Army in the 1980s, is Ukrainian artillerists’ favorite weapon, said Col. Serhiy Musiyenko, deputy commander of Ukraine’s missile and artillery forces.

It can shoot up to 19 miles, compared with the 15-mile ranges of their Soviet artillery, and its accuracy gives Ukrainian gunners an advantage over the Russians, Musiyenko said.

Ukraine was using Soviet artillery until it received its first 12 M777s near the northeast Ukrainian city Izium in June 2022.

“We immediately felt the advantage,” said Musiyienko, whose own combat experience stretches back to 2014.

More M777s have been sent to Ukraine, or around 180 pieces, than any other artillery. All but around 10 have come from the U.S.

M777 Howitzer

Maximum firing range: 14 to 24.2 miles

Maximum rate of fire: 4 rpm

Weight: 4.2 tons

In service: 2005

Origin:  Made in U.K., assembled in U.S.

155mm 39-caliber barrel 33.5 ft.

Source: Military-Today
Jemal R. Brinson/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

While the M777 was designed and jointly made in the U.K., it was created for the U.S. Army and so its maker, BAE Systems, needs Washington’s approval to sell guns and parts abroad.

European nations later sent howitzers that were newer, could hit further and at a faster rate. They were also self-propelled so could escape counter fire faster than the towed M777 once they had fired.

But many Ukrainians still preferred their M777s because they were easy to use, rarely broke down and if damaged were quickly repairable. Among self-propelled artillery, Ukrainians like the U.S.-supplied M109 because its cab provides good protection.  

Ukraine’s stock of M777s is on average off the battlefield for repairs half the time of the country’s more modern self-propelled artillery, according to one Ukrainian official.

A lack of spare parts could also eventually remove many Ukrainians’ favorite infantry fighting vehicles from the battlefield. The Bradley, an aging though highly mobile vehicle, can quickly shuttle troops to and from the front lines and protect them from drones and guided missiles.

Bradley fighting vehicle

Maximum firing range: 14 to 24.2 miles

Maximum rate of fire: 4 rpm

Weight: 4.2 tons

In service: 2005

Origin:  Made in U.K., assembled in U.S.

155mm 39-caliber barrel 33.5 ft.

Source: Military-Today
Jemal R. Brinson/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Can carry up to 10 personnel depending on model Requires a crew of 3

Main gun; 25mm M242 Bushmaster chain gun

BGM-71 TOW anti-tank  guided missile launcher

Driver’s vision port 8.4 ft, 10.5 ft, 21.1 ft

Note: Illustration is an M2A4 model.

Sources: United States Army Acquisition Support Center, Military-Today
Adrienne Tong/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The U.S. has supplied more than 300 Bradleys, which are no longer in production. Last year, U.S. officials said they aimed to provide three months of spares for equipment sent to Ukraine.

Ukrainian mechanics have already become adept at manufacturing their own spare parts. At one repair depot, around 20% of the parts that Ukrainian mechanics used to fix damaged M777s, including hoses and some gauges, were domestically produced.

Still, that doesn’t always work. The M777, for instance, is made of titanium, an ultralight metal that is hard to weld and not readily available. German officials have said that Ukrainian attempts to use foreign parts on their tanks and howitzers often ended up further damaging the vehicles.

Even with U.S. supplies, Capt. Oleksandr Shyrshyn from the 47th Brigade hasn’t always had enough spares for the Bradleys under his command. The Bradley is the best infantry fighting vehicle he has worked with, and it would be unpleasant if the lack of spares puts them out of action, he said. But there are not enough of them to have a critical impact on Ukraine.

“We have other means,” he said.

Alongside more traditional weapons, the U.S. makes some of Ukraine’s most sophisticated and new equipment. Europe has supplied much of Ukraine’s short- and midrange air defense. But Europe currently has nothing on land that can compare to the U.S. Patriot system’s ability to destroy Russian ballistic and hypersonic missiles. Both missiles are so fast and ballistics so large that there are few defenses against them.

The Patriot’s success can be seen in Ukrainian government data. Between October 2023 and last November, Ukraine shot down only 10% of ballistic missiles, according to data from the Ukrainian Air Force. But those fired at Kyiv, where Ukraine has at least one Patriot system, were typically intercepted.

“Everyone wants a Patriot,” said Viktor Petryshyn, a Ukrainian air defense commander in southern Ukraine. Petryshyn uses a Soviet S-300 system that has shot down Russian drones, missiles and planes.

Ukraine has around five Patriot systems, three of which come from the U.S. Ukraine’s biggest problem will now be getting the U.S. manufactured missiles.

“They were not getting enough as it was,” said Nick Reynolds, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

“It would expose Ukraine’s critical national infrastructure even more and put the population to more risk,” he said. Ukraine’s electricity grid has been targeted through much of the war, causing black outs and hurting the country’s economy.  

Underscoring the problems, France and Italy supplied a Samp/T missile defense system that was designed to handle ballistic missiles. But after arriving in Ukraine, the system’s software struggled and it failed to hit ballistic missiles, according to people familiar with the matter. Ukraine also soon ran low on the Aster missile that the Samp/T uses, they said.

A spokesman for Eurosam, the joint venture that makes the system, didn’t immediately comment.

The intelligence cutoff could deprive Ukraine of early warnings about missile strikes that have helped defenders down missiles.

Russia launched a large-scale aerial bombardment of Ukrainian cities early Friday with 67 missiles and 194 attack drones, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. The majority were intercepted, the air force said, but officials reported damage to power and gas facilities. Early Saturday, Russia struck the eastern city of Dobropillya with two ballistic missiles, killing at least 11, Ukrainian officials said.

One of the key pieces of nonlethal U.S. technology that Ukraine uses is Starlink, the satellite-internet service developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Starlink still provides effective and secure communications between troops and their commanders and allows feeds from drones to be shared to help artillery gunners target their fire.

Ukraine’s supporters supplied thousands of Starlink terminals to Kyiv. But SpaceX and Musk, who now has a senior U.S. government role and has become increasingly critical of Kyiv, can cut Ukraine off from the service.

Ukraine, meanwhile, is relying on innovation of its own.

Ukrainian companies are producing drones that fly on autopilot to strike a target selected by an operator, preventing Russian jammers from downing them.

Ukraine has also solved the conundrum of how to down ubiquitous Russian reconnaissance drones cheaply—by striking them with small explosive drones.

“Technology development dictates the battlefield, not America,” said Taras Chmut, head of Come Back Alive, a charity supplying weapons to the Ukrainian army. “America has fallen behind modern warfare. Europe has fallen behind modern warfare. Ukraine is waging the war of the future.”

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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Russia Pushes Ukrainian Forces Back in Kursk After U.S. Halts Support

Efforts to eject Ukrainian soldiers from Russian territory accelerate ahead of U.S.-Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia

By Ievgeniia Sivorka, James Marson, and Jane Lytvynenko

Updated March 9, 2025 12:59 pm ET

KYIV, Ukraine—An accelerating advance by Russian and North Korean forces is threatening Ukraine’s toehold in Kursk, the slice of Russian territory that Ukrainian officials had hoped would give them leverage in any peace talks.

Russian and North Korean troops in recent days seized several villages in the Kursk region and used overwhelming drone power to largely cut supply routes to the main Ukrainian force in the city of Sudzha, according to soldiers in the area and analysts.

The advance came ahead of talks this week between senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia.

Areas of control in Ukraine

Can’t show cities – sorry – this isn’t in the print edition anyway.

It also followed the U.S. decision to halt intelligence sharing and weapons deliveries to Ukraine. The move immediately reduced Ukraine’s ability to carry out long-range strikes, which rely on accurate targeting data, and over time will deprive Ukraine of crucial ammunition and weapons.

Ukraine had since the start of the year stabilized much of the 800-mile front line inside Ukraine, stalling Russian advances and counterattacking around the embattled eastern cities of Toretsk and Pokrovsk, which Russia had been on the verge of seizing.

But the quickening advances in Kursk threaten a surprise Ukrainian incursion launched in August that quickly overwhelmed unprepared Russian defenses and seized dozens of towns and villages.

One Ukrainian artillery gunner deployed on the Kursk front said he was firing to provide cover for soldiers pulling back from the area.

“I’m covering their withdrawal so that they don’t become encircled,” the soldier said in a phone message. “Right, f— them up,” he said to a colleague.

Ukraine’s leadership touted the push into Russia, the first by a foreign army since World War II, as a way to prevent a Russian attack from there, and to capture prisoners for exchange and boost Kyiv’s negotiating position in case of peace talks. Critics said it drained resources needed to protect the front elsewhere when Ukrainian troops were already stretched.

Russia threw vast resources into attempting to retake Kursk, suffering large losses. It deployed some of its best units there and, in December, sent more than 10,000 North Korean troops.

The North Korean troops, unprepared for the modern battlefield, were initially eliminated with relative ease. But they are now creating difficulties because, unlike their Russian counterparts, they push forward in waves, exhausting Ukrainian resources, said Roman Pohorily, a co-founder of DeepState, a Ukrainian group that analyses images and videos posted on social media and information from troops to produce an accurate map of the front line.

“All these latest advances, in most cases, are thanks to them,” Pohorily said.

Once the North Koreans break through, Russian troops follow them to secure the positions, pushing back Ukrainian defenses.

The Russian army has been preparing the offensive in Kursk since January, Pohorily said. That is when drone operators and artillery units began probing a critical Ukrainian supply route for weaknesses, then bringing in a high number of drone operators to bombard it.

“Everything that’s moving to there or from there—95%—is attacked,” Pohorily said of Kursk.

Drones are playing a key role in the Russians’ push forward, and the strong reconnaissance means Ukrainians have trouble moving unnoticed. Soldiers said Russia was using huge numbers of drones controlled via a thin fiber-optic cable, which prevents Ukrainians from downing them using electronic jammers.

One Ukrainian soldier operating in the area said Russia was at times deploying drone pilots closer to the front line than usual, extending their explosive crafts’ ranges.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in an interview on Fox Business that he thinks President Trump’s recent pause on military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine will “go away.” [Sooner the better! RAM]

The air dominance means not only equipment, but even troop movements don’t go unnoticed, soldiers said.

Another soldier said rotating soldiers into front-line positions often required walking 15 miles on foot. “That’s why everything is collapsing.”

It is as yet unclear whether Ukrainians would deploy reinforcements to try to stabilize this part of the front or will need to pull out from Kursk altogether as heated battles are ongoing. If Ukrainians do pull out, it would bring Russians closer to the Ukrainian region of Sumy, where Kyiv’s troops will need to continue their defense.

Withdrawing would create difficulties not only militarily, but politically, as Ukraine had hoped to trade Russia’s Kursk region for a chunk of Ukraine occupied by Moscow’s forces.

It could also feed into Washington’s narrative of Ukraine potentially negotiating from a position of weakness—a perception strengthened by President Trump’s decision to withdraw military aid to the country.

Despite the difficulty in Kursk, Ukraine has had success elsewhere at the front. After a grueling battle, it has managed to halt Russia’s offensive on the city of Pokrovsk, which looked all but lost only a few months prior. Ukraine also has mounted a successful counteroffensive in the eastern city of Toretsk, where Ukrainian forces gained ground.

Analysts are divided on whether Russians fighting in the east are regrouping or running out of steam due to heavy losses. Even as brutal battles continue, Russia loses more people and materiel than Ukraine on the battlefield

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ROBERT MCCONNELL
Co-Founder, U.S.-Ukraine Foundation
Director of External Affairs, Friends of Ukraine Network

The introduction and parenthetical comments are Mr. McConnell’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation or the Friends of Ukraine Network (FOUN).