The Russians are no longer on the back foot in Ukraine, says former CIA chief Robert Gates.
“A lot of people are referring to the war at this point as a stalemate,” Gates told The Washington Post in an interview on Wednesday. “I’m afraid I believe that, at this point, it’s actually not so much a stalemate, but that the Russians have regained momentum.”
“It’s not breakthrough kind of momentum, but it is the sense that they are now the ones pressing the offensive,” he continued.
Gates also served as defense secretary during the Bush and Obama administrations. He told the Post that Ukraine losing the strategically significant city of Avdiivka has allowed the Russians to move combat lines further east.
“Everything I’m reading is that the Russians are sort of on the offensive all along at various different places along the 600-mile frontier,” Gates told the Post.
Ukrainian losses, Gates said, stemmed in part from their struggles with weapon and ammunition supplies.
“I’ve read that for every artillery shell that the Ukrainians fire, the Russians are firing 10, and so the Ukrainians now are facing this shortage of ammunition, artillery,” Gates said.
The Ukrainian war effort has been heavily reliant on US aid. The US has sent over $44 billion in military assistance since the war began in February 2022.
However, House Republicans appear likely to block a Senate-approved $60 billion aid deal for Ukraine.
“Because Congress has yet to pass the supplemental bill, we have not been able to provide Ukraine with the artillery shells that they desperately need to disrupt these Russian assaults,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at a press conference last week.
“The cost of inaction by the Congress is stark. And it’s being born on the shoulders of Ukrainian soldiers,” Kirby told journalists.
