Will American military aid be enough to turn the tide of war in Ukraine? And, above all, will it arrive soon enough to stop the increasing number of Russian attacks along the front line, not only in Donbas but also now in the Kharkiv region in the northeast of the country, where Moscow's troops went on the offensive on May 10?
After several months of prevarication, the US Congress approved a further $60.8 billion in aid to Ukraine on April 23, adding to the approximately $44 billion in military support provided by Washington since February 2022. Aware of the urgent need to replenish Kyiv's depleted arsenals, President Joe Biden immediately gave the go-ahead for the first shipment of equipment, worth $1 billion, including Stinger air-defense systems and Javelin anti-tank missiles, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and 155 mm caliber shells. A second shipment, worth $400 million, was also announced on May 10.
Pre-positioned in Germany and Poland, pending the vote in Congress, some of this equipment has already arrived in the field. In late April and early May, several Russian sites were bombarded with long-range ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) missiles, an item of equipment previously unavailable to the Ukrainians. Fired by a HIMARS rocket launcher and guided by GPS and an inertial navigation system, the projectiles can reach targets 300 kilometers away, almost twice as far as the version initially delivered by the US to Kyiv.
The Crimean peninsula, occupied by Moscow's forces since 2014 but which Ukraine still intends to reclaim, is the main target, according to pro-Russian networks. On April 28, an air defense unit was reportedly targeted at the Tarkhankut Peninsula, the westernmost point of the region. On April 30, the Dzhankoi air base in northern Crimea was hit by ATACMS, destroying or damaging S-400 and S-300 ground-to-air systems. On May 4, an Iskander ballistic missile system at Luhove, northeast of Eupatoria, was bombed.
"There is a feeling that the Ukrainians are seeking to reduce the potential of Crimea, which serves as a backyard for Russian operations in the south of the country," said a French military source. Clearing the peninsula's skies of Russian air defenses could also be the prelude to a new attempt to bomb the strategic Kerch Bridge, located in the southeast of Crimea, some 250 kilometers from the front. Used by Moscow to resupply its troops, the bridge has already been the target of several attacks in 2022 and 2023, but remains operational for the time being, although the heaviest freight trains no longer use it.
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