Ifølge Politico skal Washington ha signalisert til Kyiv at de må forberede seg på en mer defensiv støtte hvis våroffensiven mislykkes eller ikke gir det ønskede resultat. USA går inn i et valgår og krigen kan bli et diskusjonstema, noe Bobby Kennedy jr allerede har varslet.

the Biden administration fears it will be criticized if Ukraine’s counteroffensive falls short of its goals. Simply put, if Kyiv’s forces don’t retake a large chunk of territory seized by Russia, hawks will say the United States should’ve provided more weapons while doves will claim the time for peace talks was yesterday (and that’s not even including what on-the-fence allies would do).

To tjenestemenn snakker med pressen og de sier de ikke har for store forventninger.

Two U.S. officials told our own ERIN BANCO that the belief is the Russians are so dug in that the Ukrainian offensive won’t amount to much. There is even some thinking that the offensive might not happen at all, at least not in the way Ukraine’s push last year went down. “I don’t think that there’s going to be this, wake up one morning and see, like, Ukrainian streaming across large swaths of territory sort of situation,” said one of the officials, who, like others, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations. “Definitely not.”

Krigen er inne i det andre året og opinionen begynner å lure på hvor og når det skal ende. De er på vakt mot blancosjekker. Det er nettopp hva Biden har skrevet ut: At USA skal stå ved Ukrainas side så lenge de vil slåss. Det later til å ha snudd.

when Ukrainian officials were in Washington, D.C., last week, they asked administration officials what pledges or guarantees they could expect from the United States during the NATO summit in July. The general response to them was: “Depends on how the counteroffensive goes.”

All of this tracks with what Alex and Jonathan heard. There’s a sense that a lot — and we mean a lot — is riding on Kyiv to turn the ever-forthcoming counteroffensive into a clear win.

I bakgrunnen spøker våpenhvile og senere fredsforhandlinger. Hvis det først blir enighet om våpenhvile kan det bli vanskelig å starte krigen igjen. Da er det forhandlinger som overtar.

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2023/04/24/what-bidens-thinking-on-ukraines-counteroffensive-00093467

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