No new Ukrainian offensive this year despite NATO aid – NYT

Some of the arms pledged to Kiev are yet to be produced, according to the newspaper

NATO officials do not expect Kiev to mount a new attempt to push back Russian troops this year, despite billions of dollars worth of new weapons pledged by member states, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

Kiev was promised more missiles, armored vehicles, and munitions this week at a NATO summit in Washington, and the US and its allies signed a long-term pledge of assistance. But it will take months and years before the weapons are delivered, considering that some of them are yet to be manufactured, the newspaper said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one senior NATO official told the Times that the aid puts Kiev on the path to a new offensive next year. Another one said Ukrainian troops would remain on the defensive for at least six more months.

The Ukrainian government has blamed insufficient deliveries of Western arms for the failures of its forces on the battlefield, including during last year’s much-touted “counteroffensive.” Vladimir Zelensky complained about the same issue earlier this month, when he claimed that Kiev has troops on standby waiting to be armed.

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Zelensky bemoans ‘slow’ US military aid

”We have the desire [to launch a counteroffensive], but the tools have not arrived. That is, we have brigades without weapons, we have reserves, we have 14 under-armed brigades that do not have the appropriate weaponry,” he told Bloomberg.

Western officials have put part of the blame on Kiev itself, when speaking privately with journalists. Zelensky reportedly overrode the Ukrainian military leadership on several occasions to prioritize his political goals. For example, in early 2023 he poured forces into the defense of the city of Artyomovsk, also known as Bakhmut, reportedly rejecting the calls of US military officials to retreat and preserve his troops for an counterattack.

Moscow has said that no amount of foreign aid can change the outcome of the Ukraine conflict, and that external support unnecessarily prolongs hostilities. Western-made weapons “will burn” like the rest of Ukraine’s equipment, Russian officials have predicted.