American instructors began training Ukrainian troops in April 2022, with drills taking place at the Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany. Some 3,100 Ukrainian soldiers had received US training by the end of 2022. The program was expanded in January 2023 to train 12 brigades in the runup to Kiev’s disastrous summer counteroffensive.

In addition to these 12 brigades, three brigades were trained by other European nations, while American instructors taught combined arms tactics to a tank battalion and two national guard battalions.

However, the last brigade trained in Germany left Grafenwoehr, the largest US ovcerseas training command, in January or February, anonymous officials told the Washington Post on Saturday. None have been trained in the months since, “suggesting a depletion of the personnel pipeline,” the newspaper paraphrased.

Ukraine’s manpower issues have been covered by Western news outlets since late last year, although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted in February that his forces had suffered only 31,000 fatalities in two years of fighting. American and Ukrainian officials know that this figure is a gross understatement, but admitted Zelensky must find a way to “inspire more Ukrainian men to come to the front lines,” one US source said.

“We see so many deaths and so many wounded,” a Ukrainian lawmaker stated.

“If they go, [troops] want to know how long they will be there.”

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Ukraine lost more than 160,000 troops during last summer’s counteroffensive, out of nearly half a million during the entire conflict to date. Zelensky’s former presidential adviser, Aleksey Arestovich, h as claimed that Ukraine ha s lost up to 300,000 men so far.

In December, Zelensky announced that his military had asked him to mobilize an additional 500,000 troops and embarked on a flurry of legislative activity in a bid to boost mobilization. After weeks of parliamentary debate, Zelensky signed two bills earlier this month, one of which lowers the age of conscription for men from 27 to 25, while another stiffens penalties for draft-dodging and denies some civil rights to service evaders.

Last week, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry banned all men between the ages of 18 and 60 from receiving or renewing documents, including passports, at consular offices outside the country unless they are properly registered for mobilization.

Since the beginning of the conflict, the EU has provided Kiev with as much as €100 billion ($107 billion) in financial, military, humanitarian and refugee assistance. Brussels has also mulled the idea of tapping income generated by Russia’s frozen central bank reserves for Kiev, but no consensus within the EU or with allies has so far been reached on the issue.

“Europeans will not go to die for the Donbass, but we could avoid that Ukrainians have to die for the Donbass longer,” Borrell said while speaking at a panel session of a two-day meeting of the World Economic Forum in Riyadh.

The bloc’s top diplomat admitted that the issue of allocating funds for Kiev is “difficult”, but stressed that Brussels pledged to help the nation in its war effort against Russia.

“Many people could say ‘well how long do we have to spend so much money’ but we committed to support Ukraine […] We have to continue supporting Ukraine and Ukrainians, enable [them] to resist,” he added.

In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Western militaries have long had boots on the ground in Ukraine and that they have grown in numbers since the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014. These comments came shortly after French President Emmanuel Macron said that he “cannot exclude” the possibility of soldiers from the US-led military bloc being sent to aid Kiev. However, this sparked a wave of denials from senior officials of NATO member states.

Putin also said last year that the West is prepared to fight Russia to “the last Ukrainian”.

Meanwhile, controversy about Ukraine aid spending has been mounting within the EU. In February, the bloc approved another package of €50 billion ($54 billion) to support the Ukrainian economy after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban dropped his veto threat due to warnings of economic retribution from other EU heads of state. Budapest argued that Ukraine is not able defeat Russian forces and that the sanctions imposed on Russia over the conflict have caused more harm to the bloc’s members than to Moscow.

In November, Slovakia overturned plans to donate rockets and ammunition to Ukraine approved by the previous government as the country’s newly appointed Prime Minister Robert Fico sharply criticized military support for Ukraine along with sanctions on Russia. He has advocated for immediate peace talks.

Ukrainian troops retreated from the villages of Berdychi and Semyonovka, to the northwest of Avdeevka, and from Novomikhailovka, to the southwest of Donetsk, commander-in-chief General Aleksandr Syrsky said on Sunday in a Telegram post.

The outnumbered Ukrainians gave ground to preserve “the lives and health of our defenders”, he added.

“The most difficult situation is in the Pokrovsk and Kurakhovo directions, where fierce battles continue,” Syrsky said.

“The enemy has engaged up to four brigades in these directions, and is trying to develop an offensive west of Avdeevka and Maryinka, making its way to Pokrovsk and Kurakhovo.”

After capturing the Ukrainian stronghold of Avdeevka in February, Russian units have made steady battlefield gains. They are now firmly in control of the battlefield situation and are steadily pushing back Ukrainian forces, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said last Monday. According to Moscow, Kiev’s forces had lost more than 8,000 soldiers in just the past week.

In recent days, Russian forces also liberated the town of Bogdanovka, located near the strategic town of Chasov Yar in the north of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). Chasov Yar sits on high ground, and taking it would give Russian units a strong vantage point from which to attack other key cities held by the Ukrainians.

The Ukrainian general acknowledged on Sunday that Russian forces are attacking along “the entire front line”, spanning more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles). On Friday he told Western backers that Kiev’s forces face a “difficult operational and strategic situation, which has a tendency to get worse”.

The administration of US President Joe Biden blamed Ukraine’s battlefield setbacks, including the fall of Avdeevka, on opposition from Republican lawmakers, saying their “inaction” led to crippling ammunition shortages. Biden vowed to rush more aid to Kiev after Congress approved $61 billion in additional funding last week.

However, Moscow said that no Western weapons can change the dynamics on the front lines. Some US officials told Politico that the White House is also not convinced that the latest American assistance will be enough for Ukraine to prevail in the conflict against Russia.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stated Russia must support the current dynamics in the special military operation zone while the panic on the enemy side is growing.

“On the Ukrainian side, the panic is growing on the frontline,” the Kremlin official said in an appearance on the “Moscow.Kremlin.Putin” television program, according to an excerpt posted on journalist Pavel Zarubin’s Telegram channel.

“And this is first-hand information that there, on that side, the panic is growing. It is very important for us now to maintain this dynamics. It is very important not to stop and continue fulfilling [the tasks of the special military operation],” Peskov stressed.

The collective West and Ukraine will try to “play chicken” with Russia but it is important not to succumb, he added.

“It goes without saying that the other side, I mean, ‘the collective West plus one,’ that’s how I would call them, will try to ‘play chicken’ with us. The important thing is for us not to give in,” the Kremlin official continued, commenting on Western missile supplies to Kiev.