Ukraine ‘Scales Back’ Military Operations, Blames Lack of Foreign Aid

In Kharkiv Region, Ukraine, on December 14, 2023, a serviceman is carrying a Baby Yoda toy
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Oliver JJ Lane

Ukraine has blamed a “shortfall in foreign assistance” as it suffers a shortage of munitions, forcing it to make operations “smaller” in its Western-backed war against the Russian occupation.

General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi cited shell starvation “across the entire front line” —  what he called a “very big problem” – and what Reuters paraphrased as “the drop in foreign military aid” as being major factors in the reduced combat readiness of Ukrainian troops. Speaking to the wire service in interview, the Ukrainian military leader said the volumes of artillery “are not sufficient for us today, given our needs”, so ammunition was having to be redistributed.

He said: “We’re replanning tasks that we had set for ourselves and making them smaller because we need to provide for them… In some areas, we moved (to defence), and in some we continue our offensive actions – by manoeuvre, fire and by moving forward. And we are preparing our reserves for our further large-scale actions.” Further, the general said after nearly two years of attrition warfare, his men are “not so fresh, not so rested”.

In the Ukrainian state media’s own digest of the interview, his remarks were summarised as: “Frontline Ukrainian troops face shortages of artillery shells and have scaled back some military operations due to a shortfall in foreign assistance.” The general remarked he was having a particularly hard time getting enough shells in calibre sizes to suit his Soviet-era legacy guns, but as repeated reports have demonstrated in the past year, the supply of 155mm NATO standard shells isn’t great either.

Western military support not meeting Kyiv’s needs and blame being laid for failed operations is a recurring theme in Ukrainian communications with the outside world, as the partially occupied nation works to keep its name in the headlines. Given much Western attention has drifted southward to Israel since the Hamas terror attack, Ukraine is having to exert harder to persuade Western lawmakers to keep donating money and equipment, and recent figures show the number of gifts is flatlining.

Ukraine is apparently reeling from both of its largest supporters, the United State and the European Union, not passing multi-billion support packages in recent weeks.

President Zelensky himself underlined the disconnect between what the Ukrainian army wishes to achieve in terms of access to funding and what is presently politically possible in remarks during his final press conference of the year on Tuesday. Speaking to journalists, Zelensky said the Ukrainian army wanted to mobilise a further 500,000 soldiers, but that this would cost 500 billion Ukrianian hryvna ($12 billion). “Where do we get the funds?”, he added.

That is not to say Ukraine is without hope, however. The nation made much of the importance of receiving Western fighter jets, and their pilots are now being trained in Romania. It is possible the first of dozens of F-16s in Ukrainian service could be in combat in 2024. General Tarnavskyi said in his interview that “With the presence of the F-16, it will be totally [different]”, but whether against the enormous Russian airforce the jets will be a silver bullet is yet to be seen.

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