KYIV/NEAR KUPIANSK, Ukraine, April 22 (Reuters) - For the exhausted Ukrainian artillery gunners holding off Russian forces near the eastern town of Kupiansk, the U.S. aid package expected to finally pass this week is a lifeline and, potentially, a gamechanger, although that could take some time.
"If
they'd passed it (earlier), it would have changed the situation
dramatically," said one soldier, call sign "Sailor", who said a shortage
of shells had reduced their covering fire for infantrymen, costing
lives and territory.
After
six months of congressional wrangling, the $61 billion aid package is
now expected to be approved this week by the U.S. Senate and signed by
President Joe Biden, replenishing Kyiv's critically low stocks of artillery shells and air defences.
The
influx of weapons should improve Kyiv's chances of averting a major
Russian breakthrough in the east, said two military analysts, an
ex-Ukrainian defence minister and a European security official.
But
Kyiv still faces manpower shortages on the battlefield, while questions
linger over the strength of its fortifications along a sprawling,
1,000-km front line ahead of what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said
could be a Russian summer offensive.
"The
most important source of Ukrainian weakness is the lack of manpower,"
said Konrad Muzyka, director of the Rochan military consultancy in
Poland.
After months of debate, a law
signed by Zelenskiy on April 16 to overhaul the rules governing how
Ukraine mobilises civilians into the army enters force in May with the
aim of making the process faster, more transparent and effective.
But
new draftees will require months of training before they can be
deployed, which in turn creates a "window of opportunity" for Russia to
exploit, Muzyka said.
"I
would expect the situation to probably continue to deteriorate over the
next three months, but if mobilisation goes according to plan and the
U.S. aid is unblocked then the situation should improve from autumn
onwards," he said.
The Kremlin said the U.S. aid would not alter Russia's upper hand on the front lines and would simply result in more Ukrainian deaths.
NARROW THE SHELL GAP
Moscow has had the battlefield advantage since capturing Avdiivka,
a long-time bastion town in the eastern Donbas region, in February, and
its forces have been slowly advancing, using greater numbers of troops
and artillery shells.
They are now bearing down on the town of Chasiv Yar,
located on high ground that, if captured, would bring Moscow closer to
the remaining Kyiv-held Donbas cities of Kostiantynivka, Kramatorsk and
Sloviansk.
Zelenskiy
said last week that Russia was now able to fire 10 times more artillery
rounds than Ukraine's troops. Russian forces outnumber Kyiv's troops
7-10 times in the east, a Ukrainian general said this month.
Andriy
Yusov, Ukraine's military intelligence spokesman, said Moscow was
focused on the full capture of the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions
-- the Donbas.
Russia,
he added, was attacking on three fronts there - west of Avdiivka, from
Kupiansk to Lyman and west of Bakhmut. In the south, it was pressing on
Robotyne, the village retaken by Kyiv during last year's offensive, he
said.
Ukrainian
positions have been pounded this year by thousands of glide bombs fired
by warplanes taking advantage of Russian air superiority and dwindling
Ukrainian air defences.