Austin: Ukraine’s fight with Russia a marathon rather than a sprint

Pushing entrenched Russian troops out of their territory will be more of a long-distance marathon than a sprint for Ukraine’s attacking forces, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday, as NATO and allied defense ministers meeting in Brussels cleared the way for Ukrainian pilots to begin training to fly coveted U.S. F16 fighters jets.

Even as civilians endure missile and drone attacks from Russia — including a barrage on Tuesday that killed nearly a dozen people at an apartment building in the provincial city of Kryvyi Rih — Ukrainian forces have begun waging counteroffensive operations that are showing early signs of progress, Mr. Austin said.

“The Ukrainians have been engaging in a tough fight to defend their sovereign territory and take back their occupied territory,” he said at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. “We have all seen the skill and courage of Ukraine’s defenders ever since the start of Russia’s invasion.”

But Mr. Austin, a four-star Army general before taking over at the Pentagon, warned that war is “fluid, dynamic and unpredictable.” Ukraine says it has recaptured a handful of villages in the early days of the counteroffensive, while Russian officials claim to have inflicted heavy losses on advancing Ukrainian forces.

The announcement that Ukrainian pilots will start training on the F16s marked a softening of the Biden administration’s long resistance to giving Kyiv the sophisticated fighter planes for fear of provoking Russia. No nation has said it has agreed to pass along its F16s to Ukraine and Washington would have to approve any transfer, but NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the shift was still significant.

“The fact that training has started provides us with the option to also decide to deliver the planes and then the pilots will be ready to fly them,” he said.

This week’s meeting of the 50-nation “Ukraine Defense Contact Group” comes just weeks before a critical summit of President Biden and other alliance leaders in Vilnius, Lithuania. While Ukraine’s bid for membership in the alliance is expected to be on the agenda, some member states — including the U.S. — have expressed reservations while the fighting with Russia continues. 

On Thursday, the U.S. joined NATO allies Denmark, the Netherlands, and Great Britain in agreeing to provide Ukraine with hundreds of new air defense missiles. The project will send hundreds of short and medium-range air defense systems to Ukraine within weeks. British defense officials said the package consists largely of Soviet-era missiles.

Next month’s Vilnius summit, in addition to Ukraine, will take up the stalled bid of Sweden to join the alliance, which so far has been blocked mainly by objections from Turkey. The leaders also face a hard-to-fill vacancy after Mr. Stoltenberg announced plans to step down this year, with growing talk that the former Norwegian prime minister may be pressed to stay on the job for another year if no acceptable successor emerges.

Mr. Austin said in Brussels that Moscow has “ruthlessly” ramped up its missile and drone attacks on Ukraine over the past month. He said striking civilian targets is part of Moscow’s plan to break the will of the Ukrainian people.

“Ukraine’s air defenders have saved countless lives using air defense systems and interceptor missiles donated by members of this contact group,” he said.

More than 6,000 Ukrainian troops are currently being trained at 40 training sites located in 33 different countries. By itself, the U.S. has trained more than 11,000 Ukrainian soldiers in combined arms operations and staff responsibilities, Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

Mr. Austin accused Russia of exaggerating reports of the damage it has inflicted on Western-supplied combat vehicles provided to Ukraine, including U.S.-made Bradley Fighting Vehicles, in recent fighting.

“I think the Russians have shown us those same five vehicles about 1,000 times from 10 different angles,” he said. “We know there will be battle damage on both sides. What’s important is that Ukrainians have the ability to recover equipment that’s been damaged, repair when possible, and get that equipment back into the fight.”

Top U.S. officials said the morale of Russian troops on the front line is not high. But, with more than 100,000 Russian soldiers dug in prepared positions all along the 600-mile-plus front line in eastern and southern Ukraine, nobody believes Ukraine‘s advance will be quick or easy, Gen. Milley said.

“This is a very difficult fight — it’s a very violent fight. It will likely take a considerable amount of time and at a high cost,” he said.