Leaders of Ukraine, Russia assess their resources as their war heads into winter

Kyiv: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he spoke with President Joe Biden about future US support for Ukraine, and Russian President Vladimir Putin visited a military base near the invaded nation’s border as the warring countries prepared for the winter and next year’s combat operations.

Almost 20 months of war have sapped both sides’ military resources.

The fighting is likely to settle into positional and attritional warfare during the approaching wintry weather, analysts say, with little change along the more than 1,000-kilometre (600-mile) front line.

Zelenskyy said late Thursday he spoke to Biden by phone about “a significant support package” for Ukraine. Western help has been crucial for Ukraine’s war effort.

The US president is expected to ask Congress on Friday for billions of dollars in military assistance for both Ukraine and Israel.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the latest US pledges to back Ukraine would bear no fruit in the war.

“Mr. Biden hasn’t mentioned that all those efforts to deter Russia have proven inefficient,” Peskov said. “They will remain inefficient in the future.”

Zelenskyy also spoke Friday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who “reasserted (Germany’s) sustained and steadfast solidarity with Ukraine,” according to the German government.

Putin visited late Thursday the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District, which is located less than 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Ukraine’s southeastern border.

He was briefed on the war by the chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, the Kremlin said.

With the scale of the Western aid Kyiv can expect going forward uncertain, and after a five-month-long Ukrainian counteroffensive that sapped Russia’s reserves but apparently only dented its front-line defences, both countries are scrambling to replenish their stockpiles for 2024.

Ukraine has been expending ammunition at a rate of more than 200,000 rounds per month, according to Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London.

“Sufficient ammunition to sustain this rate of fire is not going to be forthcoming as NATO stockpiles deplete, and production rates for ammunition remain too low to meet this level of demand,” Watling wrote in an assessment published late Thursday.