The US is changing its rhetoric: Ukraine is fighting for survival, not for victory — The Economist

The United States can no longer provide military assistance to Ukraine on the same scale without serious risks to itself. This is reported by The Economist magazine with reference to a source in the administration of Joe Biden.

"I just don't know if we can produce enough, give enough. We don't have anything else we can give them without being at serious risk elsewhere," said a source familiar with the flow of American aid.

The gloomy mood is also evident in the change in American rhetoric, the newspaper notes. High-ranking officials like the head of the US Department of Defense, Lloyd Austin, continue to publicly demonstrate confidence, promising that Ukraine will win. However, those who are engaged in planning in The Pentagon says that in practice, the ambitions of the beginning of 2023 have given way to a narrow focus on preventing defeat.

"At the moment we are thinking more and more about how Ukraine can survive," said a source involved in this planning.

Others express themselves more delicately, the magazine notes.

"The next few months are an opportunity for us to confirm that Ukraine can remain on the battlefield for the next few years," State Department Senior Representative for Europe Jim O'Brien said at a conference in Riga on October 19.

The publication writes that the military economy of the Russian Federation may face a crisis in the long term, but so far it exceeds the production capacity of the West.