At the end of August, Ukraine reportedly breached the first Russian line of defense in the southeast after months of a lumbering counteroffensive fight. This is not the biggie; Russia still has defensive lines behind this one, and it is barraging Ukrainian troops with artillery fire. But it is a sign that Ukraine can still pull off a major breakthrough.
It probably couldn’t have come at a better time.
In recent weeks, rifts have opened up between Ukraine and the United States over the slow pace of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. Both want Ukraine to succeed and to reach its generally understood objective, which would be to slice through Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine’s south and southeast, splitting up Russia’s so-called “land bridge” from Crimea, making it much harder for Moscow to resupply and maintain long-term control of Ukrainian territory.
But Washington and Kyiv have seemed to disagree on how Ukraine can best achieve that and whether it is even possible this year.
These are largely behind-the-scenes debates that have trickled into view, mostly courtesy of anonymous US officials in recent media reports. Those officials have suggested that Ukraine is moving too slowly, or not committing enough troops in the right places, or maybe it should do a better job using all those tanks the West sent over. Ukraine has pushed back against the armchair generaling, saying, in essence, if you want us to fight your way, equip us the way you’d equip yourself, with things like more long-range firepower and jets. Otherwise, we’re the ones doing the fighting.
“Criticizing the slow pace of [the] counteroffensive equals … spitting into the face of (the) Ukrainian soldier who sacrifices his life every day, moving forward and liberating one kilometer of Ukrainian soil after another,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said last Thursday, according to Reuters.
Publicly, Washington has been steadfast in its support for Ukraine, with officials…
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