NYT: US unhappy with Ukraine's military strategy

After more than two years of military alliance, ties between the United States and Ukraine are showing signs of wear and tear, giving way to mutual frustration.

Source. The New York Times writes about this.

For the Pentagon, the irritation boils down to one issue: American military strategists, including Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, believe that Ukraine needs to focus its energies on one major battle at a time. Instead, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has vowed to push Russia out of every inch of Ukraine, is spending his forces fighting for cities that US officials say have no strategic value.

The latest example is the battle for the city of Avdiivka, which fell to Russia last month. The US says that Ukraine defended Avdiivka for too long and at a high cost.

For its part, Ukraine is increasingly frustrated that American political paralysis has led to a shortage of ammunition for troops on the frontline. As each day passes without new supplies of ammunition and artillery, and Ukrainian crews are struggling to distribute shells, morale is sinking.

Zelenskyy promised to "renew" the Ukrainian army when he fired Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyy and appointed General Oleksandr Syrskyy, the commander of the ground forces, to replace him.

However, this did not have the desired effect. Some officials say that General Syrsky may be much more in sync with Zelensky than his predecessor.

So they doubt whether the new commander-in-chief will want to push Zelenskyy to change his strategy.

Even now, several months after a counter-offensive that failed because Ukraine, in the eyes of the Pentagon, did not heed its advice, Kyiv is just as reluctant to listen.

But Ukrainians have another frustration with the United States, which has been slow to provide advanced weapons systems that can cross Russian red lines, from fighter jets to long-range missiles.

"We slept while Rome burned," said Emily Harding, a former US intelligence official, during a discussion on Ukraine last month at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "If we hadn't slowed down in the beginning," she added, "if we had actually delivered what we were supposed to deliver, we would be much better off now.

Background. As a reminder, President Joe Biden urged lawmakers in Congress to approve military aid to Ukraine: "Ukraine will stop Putin if we give it the weapons it needs".