After more than a thousand days of war, there are signs that Ukraine has less manpower. Russia is capitalizing, seizing territory faster this year than it has since 2022 and terrorizing Ukrainians with profitably produced bombs: old Soviet-era munitions supplied with winged wings. and GPS.
This past fall, we spoke with Colonel Maksym Balagura, a special forces commander in Ukraine’s State Border Guard, and asked if Russia’s use of glide bombs had changed the trajectory of the war.
“At the moment they’re the biggest threat,” he told us. “They’re sapping the motivation of our soldiers to win.”
Ukrainians fought back in August, with the biggest foreign incursion into Russian territory since World War II.
But in October, we discovered the temperament in dark and anxious Kyiv. The Ukrainians told us that they feared that if Donald Trump win the US elections, he would prevent the offering of arms and tension of the Ukraine government in the territory of abandonment.
One woman, Halina, told us her husband was serving in the military, and hoped Americans wouldn’t abandon them.
I asked him: “Do you worry that Donald Trump has cut the source of weapons to Ukraine?”
“Yes,” she replied. “For us, it’s a matter of survival.”
After the election, President Joe Biden finally gave Ukraine permission to hit Russia with American-supplied ATACMs – missiles with a range of close to 200 miles – perhaps an attempt to help Ukraine maximize its gains before Trump takes office.
Without a stable flow of US weapons, the first line of Ukraine can collapse. This would give Russian president Vladimir Putin a monumental victory. Through this war of wear, he waited for the unit and the West to collapse.
Story produced by Mark Hudspeth. Editor: Ed Givnish.