Can Ukraine Hold Out Against a Renewed Russian Assault?

Welcome to today’s Morning Brief, where we’re looking at Ukraine’s chances as Russia begins to attack the Donbas region, French President Emmanuel Macron and challenger Marine Le Pen participate in a televised debate, and more news worth following from around the world.

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As Russia unleashes its war machine in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, the nearly two-month war is entering a murky phase. There is only limited on-the-ground reporting available in some areas, and unreliable weather means satellite surveillance won’t see everything either.

As Sam Cranny-Evans, a researcher at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, told me, there is plenty we don’t know about how well Ukraine is set up to repel the coming assault—including the number of Ukrainian military deaths, the amount of destroyed equipment, how much ammunition has been spent, and the extent of remaining food supplies. “The big question is: What has it cost them to hold on for this long? And do they have the ability to do that for another 50 days?” he said.

Ukrainian forces in the Donbas are thought to be among the country’s best, having spent years battling Russian-backed separatists to a stalemate. Russia’s invasion may have changed the military calculus, and it’s not known how much equipment was moved away from this area in order to defend against the urban assaults that typified the war’s earlier stages.

The uncertainty doesn’t necessarily mean Ukraine’s fighters are doomed, but it’s clear that the methods that helped slow Russian forces before—attacking isolated Russian units with drones and mobile artillery—won’t have the same effect this time.

As the Russian offensive gains steam, Ukraine’s Western supporters are scrambling to deliver heavy weapons—tanks, helicopters, and artillery—while Ukraine still has the ability to fight. As my FP colleagues Robbie Gramer, Jack Detsch, and Amy Mackinnon wrote last week, it’s part of a growing recognition that Ukraine needs to go on the offensive. U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to soon announce another military aid package this week, closely matching last week’s $800 million pledge.

“Russia is now seeking to destroy the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and that’s a subtly but significantly different mission to effecting regime change,” Cranny-Evans said. “There are fewer opportunities for random columns of Russian National Guard to wander into Kyiv, so that creates further challenges on how the Ukrainians fight this next phase.”

Michael Kofman, a Russia expert at CNA, said the war is taking a toll on Russian forces, too. “I think that no matter what happens in the Donbas, the Russian military will be a spent force,” he told the New York Times. “This next offensive is less decisive than it seems.”

Although Ukraine’s Donbas forces face opposition from the north, east, and south, efforts to keep supply lines open to the west will be a key factor in making sure they can hold out. But with Ukraine literally blowing through ammunition at a rapid rate, replenishing those stocks has become a global logistical challenge.

U.S. officials say that supplies are still getting to Ukrainian hands on time, however. “Clearly what the Russians want to do is cut them off and to defeat them in the Donbas. But they haven’t yet,” a senior U.S. defense official told reporters on Tuesday. “And again we don’t believe it’s inevitable that they will. But where it’s going to go tomorrow we’ll just have to wait and see.”

In echoes of the initial hurdles faced in rolling out COVID-19 vaccines, supplying ammunition and weapons can only go at the pace of current production capabilities. What’s more, the war is already depleting Western ammunition stockpiles, with Western supporters now facing “a stark choice between pouring more supplies into Ukraine or husbanding finite capabilities they may need for their own defense” as Hal Brands argues in a Bloomberg essay.

Regardless of the kind of defense Ukraine’s military can mount, the medals Russian President Vladimir Putin bestowed on the unit involved in atrocities in Bucha indicate that vicious tactics won’t let up either and that the next phase of the war could be even more brutal than the last.

Blinken hosts migration conference. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Panama today as he co-hosts a ministerial-level conference on migration. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will also attend the meeting, which will include representatives from more than 20 Western Hemisphere countries. The gathering takes place as the United States saw an increase in migrants at its Mexican border in March, with the 221,000 people processed that month representing a 20-year high.

China and the Solomon Islands. China on Tuesday said it had signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands, a move that preempts a visit from a White House delegation to the islands this week. The Solomons have yet to confirm signing any agreement, the details of which are not yet known. A White House official said the reported signing “follows a pattern of China offering shadowy, vague deals with little regional consultation in fishing, resource management, development assistance and now security practices.”

Workers at Israel’s Negev nuclear facility have been urged to remain on the lookout for well-armored intruders as the local porcupine population has exploded in recent years, putting the top-secret site at risk from the burrowing rodents. So far, the site’s nuclear infrastructure remains intact, despite damage to water pipes from porcupine teeth. Not everyone has been spared, however; a gardener is reported to have suffered a back injury stumbling over a porcupine hole.