Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky
is calling for stronger air defenses
in the northeastern region of Kharkiv
after a Russian missile attack today
killed six people and injured 11 more.
This week,
NATO's allies agreed to look for more air
defense systems to send to Ukraine.
Let's talk
more about this
with our next guest,
CNN's military analyst Cedric Leighton,
a retired colonel in the U.S.
Air Force Colonel.
And it's always great to have you on.
Right now, Ukraine is short on
troops and ammunition.
Is there an opportunity
to win on the battle?
Is there opportunity
to win on the battlefield slipping away?
Well, just it's good to be with you.
And it pains me to say this, but, yes,
if the Ukrainians don't get the aid
that they need,
it's going to be a real problem for them,
because at this particular point
in time,
we're looking at ammunition
screeches, weapons shortages,
troop shortages,
things that you've basically outlined
at the president
Zelensky has talked about.
And those things
are very difficult to overcome
if you don't have
some way of resupplying.
And that's going to,
I think, be the critical factor
for this year
and possibly the next year as well.
And this week, Denmark said work
is now underway
to begin a plan
to donate F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.
This summer.
What kind of impact
could that have for Ukraine?
So in a localized sense,
it could have a significant impact
in specific areas of the front lines.
But in the aggregate,
the one thing
that they have to watch out for,
Jessica, is the fact that the Russians
are going to respond to this.
They're going to do this
in several different ways.
One of them is through
electronic warfare, specifically jamming.
So hopefully the Ukrainian pilots
that have been trained on the F-16,
I have learned to operate the platform
in a jamming environment.
And if that's the case,
then at
least have a chance to succeed
and do some good work
for the Ukrainian ground forces
who need, of course,
all the help that they can get.
And so also, we look here to the U.S.
where the $60 billion in
aid is now hung up in Congress.
And truly,
who knows where that's going to go.
And it passed the Senate
and now it is just
lingering in the House.
Does Keith have a plan B
in case that 60 billion
never gets to them
because it never gets out of Congress?
That's going to be, I think,
a really big issue here.
So the answer, I think, is that
Keith may have a bit of a plan B,
but plan B is not something
that's going to be as robust
as that $60 billion.
And there's also,
of course, the possibility,
as you know, that
that $60 billion
figure could be curtailed
as it goes through the House
if it if it even makes it.
So this is going to be
a significant issue for them,
and it's
going to be something
where we have to see
whether or not Congress
actually steps up to the plate
and does what it needs
to do in order
to protect our vital strategic interests,
which actually are
in Ukraine at this point.
And is this war just continues to drag on
and the Ukrainians continue
to try to dig in
and really just grind it out
best they can.
What do you think
is the right expectation
at this point for Ukrainians
on where this war goes now?
Well, I think one of the things that,
you know,
kind of dampened
expectations was the failure
of the counteroffensive this past summer
to actually achieve
significant gains on the ground.
I we kind of were conditioned
to have those great successes
when the Ukrainian forces saved Kiev
and they were able to protect Kharkiv
and also recapture their son.
Those particular things
were significant to treatment.
The problem is
they needed to keep the momentum going.
And because of the way
Western aid was provided
or in this case
not provided
in a timely fashion,
that made a big difference
and that prevented the Ukrainians in part
from succeeding.
The other part,
of course, was also tactics
and the types of tactics
that the Ukrainian used
were basically tactics
that they had adapted in some ways
apart from us,
but also in part from the Soviet days
when they were part of the Soviet Union.
And those tactics did not work
against a foe
that was able to
get entrenched
to actually destabilize
the front lines in their favor.
And that really prevented
things from going forward
the way the Ukrainians wanted to.
The Russians, in essence,
learned from their mistakes in the past,
and they'll continue to learn from that.
If we don't have rapid capabilities
deployed to Ukraine
at this particular point.
Yeah.
What kind of options does
Zelensky have moving forward?
How does he get out of this?
So this is going to be really difficult
because all of the different things
that are open to him
at this particular point,
if you can't move your forces forward,
if you can't do the things
that you were able to do in the past,
you're kind of boxed
into a series of solutions.
And those might include
a basically
keeping the front lines as they are,
which would be politically unpalatable
to Zelensky.
And as far as we know,
to Ukrainian people as well,
there is the possibility
that Ukraine could achieve
some localized gains
and capitalize on those.
But in essence,
what we're looking at so far,
unless there's a dramatic change on
the battlefield, is in essence
the status quo,
which would be somewhat
akin to the solution
that was achieved in Korea
after the Korean War ended.
So, in essence,
you had a static
frontline that hasn't been in existence
since 1953.
In that particular case,
we could see something similar
to that in Ukraine.
It's not a good solution
and it's certainly not something
that is
satisfactory to Ukrainians
or to their Western backers.
But that might be the case
unless there's a drastic change
in how the Russians supply their forces
and there's a way to talk
to supply lines,
then that could
potentially change things.
But until that happens,
there is basically very little
that the Ukrainians
can do except to hold on.
And that's going to be tough.
All right, Cedric Leighton,
always great to have you on.
Thanks so much. Good to see you.