US president Joe Biden took to the pages of the Washington Post last week to assure the American people that continuing economic and military support to Ukraine is an investment in US security. On October 20, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, visited Kyiv to give the Ukrainian leadership a similar assurance together with the promise of an additional US$100 million (£80 million) in military aid.
A day later, his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, announced a new €1.3 billion (£1.1 billion) support package, focused on defensive equipment including four more IRIS-T SLM air defence systems and anti-tank mines.
This is an indication of a growing realisation that western emphasis is shifting to sustaining Ukraine’s defence against Russian aggression – contrary to the insistence by Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky and his closest political allies that victory on the battlefield is not just possible but probable. This view is now even contested in Kyiv.
