Senior government sources have warned that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s position may be untenable without access to American military aid.
An anonymous senior official told The Times that Ukraine could ‘last a matter of months, maybe less’ unless the flow of support from Washington resumes.
‘The Ukrainians are already living hand to mouth,’ the source told the newspaper.
‘Any delay in the supply of GPS-guided missiles, Himars, artillery and air defence missiles will be a serious problem for them. They can last a matter of months, maybe less.’
They stressed the importance of Zelensky ‘building up a relationship’ with Donald Trump and JD Vance in the wake of a growing spat that led to the U.S. ceasing all aid to Ukraine on Monday.
Another source warned that Zelensky’s current position may become ‘untenable’ as the Ukrainians ‘cannot hold the line without U.S. support’.
The fears echo those voiced by Ukraine following the shock announcement on Monday.
A senior Ukrainian intelligence official said that Ukraine would probably run out of the last American military supplies in ‘two or three months’.
‘After that, it will be very difficult for us,’ they told the Financial Times. ‘It will not be a total collapse, but we will be forced to withdraw from areas more quickly.’
Experts continue to predict that Ukrainian arsenals are equipped to repel Putin’s invasion until the summer.
This is only if the war continues at its current rate; were Putin to throw more resources at the war, it could pressure Zelensky into signing a deal sooner.
Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CNN that the withdrawal of aid would likely be felt within two to four months with a ‘crippling’ impact.
An American official familiar with the matter told the outlet that the halt on aid might take several days or weeks to be felt – and warned that other allies would not be able to fill the void.
‘There is a capability gap that Europe cannot fill alone,’ the official said.
Malcolm Chalmers, Deputy Director General of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London, said in light of the move that Europe ‘would probably need to double annual artillery shell production to compensate’.
But the variation in equipment would prove a challenge in training, with far more to learn.
‘[Europe] could dig deeper into its own reserves of other weapons. The problem is that while Europe has donated more in value terms, it also ends up providing many different weapons and vehicle types, which means the Ukrainian force is operating an unwieldy variety of equipment, making training more complicated’.
Prior to the announcement, Ukraine had assessed that it would likely last just six months without American aid.
Lieutenant-General Ihor Romanenko, former first deputy of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, told Al Jazeera in February ‘we will last six months’ without American military aid.
He added that he didn’t believe Europe had the capacity to step up in America’s place.
However, Ukraine has become somewhat less dependent on the US, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace senior fellow Michael Kofman told the New York Times, ‘than it was a year ago.’
Dr Kenton White, politics and international relations expert at the University of Reading, told yesterday, ahead of the shock announcement, that Ukraine was still reliant on America’s scale and efficiency of production, however.
‘Ukraine would struggle without US support as the US has the greater capacity for the manufacture and supply of weapons, ammunition and all of the supporting military equipment and infrastructure required to prosecute a modern war,’ he said.
‘A US backstop is urgent because Western Europe has been complacent about its own defence, and its ability to produce the military infrastructure necessary for fighting a war.
‘Even within NATO there is no flexibility for anything other than short term, low intensity conflicts. NATO is not ‘war-ready’ at all.’
Before aid was withdrawn, the Institute for the Study of War think tank estimated it would take Russian forces more than 83 years to capture the remaining 80% of the country, assuming they could sustain massive personnel losses indefinitely.
A White House official confirmed overnight that the U.S. would be ‘pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution’.
A second official told Fox News that ‘this is not permanent termination of aid, it’s a pause’.
It is understood the ‘pause’ will extend to undelivered aid already earmarked for Ukraine by the Biden administration.