Details of the deal were being hashed out by G7 leaders at their summit in Italy. The money could reach Kyiv before the end of the year, according to U.S. and French officials who confirmed the agreement before a formal announcement.

Here’s how the plan would work:

Where would the money come from?

Most of the money would be in the form of a loan mostly guaranteed by the U.S. government, backed by profits being earned on roughly $260 billion in immobilized Russian assets. The vast majority of that money is held in European Union nations.

A French official said the loan could be “topped up” with European money or contributions from other countries.

A U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the agreement said the G7 leaders’ official statement due out Friday will leave the door open to trying to confiscate the Russian assets entirely.

Why not just give Ukraine the frozen assets?

For more than a year, officials from multiple countries have debated the legality of confiscating the money and sending it to Ukraine.

The U.S. and its allies immediately froze whatever Russian central bank assets they had access to when Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022. That basically was money being held in banks outside Russia.

The assets are immobilized and cannot be accessed by Moscow, but they still belong to Russia.

While governments can generally freeze property or funds without difficulty, turning them into forfeited assets that can be used for the benefit of Ukraine requires an extra layer of judicial procedure, including a legal basis and adjudication in a court.

The EU instead has set aside the profits being generated by the frozen assets. That pot of money is easier to access.

Separately, the U.S. this year passed a law called the REPO Act — short for the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act — that allows the Biden administration to seize $5 billion in Russian state assets in the U.S. and use them for the benefit of Kyiv. That arrangement is being worked out.

How could the loan be used and how soon?

It will be up to technical experts to work through the details.

Ukraine will be able to spend the money in several areas, including for military, economic and humanitarian needs and reconstruction, the U.S. official said.

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the goal is “to provide the necessary resources to Ukraine now for its economic energy and other needs so that it’s capable of having the resilience necessary to withstand Russia’s continuing aggression.”

Another goal is to get the money to Ukraine quickly.

The French official, who was not authorized to be publicly named according to French presidential policy, said the details could be worked out “very quickly and in any case, the $50 billion will be disbursed before the end of 2024.”

Beyond the costs of the war, the needs are great.

The World Bank’s latest damage assessment of Ukraine, released in February, estimates that costs for reconstruction and recovery of the nation stand at $486 billion over the next 10 years.

The move to unlock Russia’s assets comes after there was a long delay in Washington by Congress in approving military aid for Ukraine.

At an Atlantic Council event previewing the G7 summit, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, John Herbst, said “the fact that American funding is not quite reliable is a very important additional reason to go that route.”

Who would be on the hook in the case of a default?

If Russia regained control of its frozen assets or if the immobilized funds were not generating enough interest to pay back the loan, “then the question of burden-sharing arises,” according to the French official.

Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said last week that there were worries among European finance ministers that their countries “will be left holding the bag if Ukraine defaults.”

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After meetings with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Budapest on Wednesday that he “accepts” the position of the Central European country not to participate in NATO efforts for Ukraine.

Orban, seen as the closest of any EU leader to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has persistently obstructed the bloc’s efforts to supply Kyiv with arms and financing.

“No Hungarian personnel will take part in these activities and no Hungarian funds will be used to support them,” Stoltenberg said.

“At the same time, the prime minister has assured me that Hungary will not oppose these efforts, enabling other allies to move forward, and he has confirmed that Hungary will continue to meet its NATO commitments in full,” he added.

The NATO chief said he and Orban had “agreed modalities for Hungary’s nonparticipation in NATO’s support for Ukraine” but did not provide details.

Consensus

This year, Stoltenberg announced that NATO is seeking to guarantee long-term weapon deliveries to Kyiv and establish a 100-billion-euro ($108bn) fund to pay for them.

However, Hungary was quick to express its opposition.

The alliance hopes to seal an agreement on the proposals at a summit next month, and NATO decisions require consensus among its 32 members.

Western governments have been unhappy with some of Hungary’s positions since the start of the war in Ukraine, including a refusal to join some European Union sanctions against Russia or send arms shipments to Ukraine.

Nationalist-populist Orban has said he does not wish to allow “geopolitical tensions” surrounding the war to negatively impact Hungary’s relations with Russia, which include strong energy ties.

The meeting on Wednesday came amid efforts by Western allies to mobilise better support for Ukraine, both diplomatically and militarily.

The United States is planning a summit in Washington, DC, next month at which its fellow NATO members are expected to agree on a roadmap for providing long-term assistance and military training for Ukraine’s military.

During a joint news conference with the presidents of Latvia and Poland in Latvia’s capital, Riga, on Tuesday, Stoltenberg said he wants NATO allies to commit to a “long-term financial pledge” to Ukraine.

The military alliance has provided about 40 billion euros ($43bn) annually since the Russian invasion in February 2022.

“We must maintain this level of support for as long as necessary,” Stoltenberg said. “Credible, long-term support sends a clear message to President Putin that he cannot wait us out.”

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“There’s always a ‘no’ first: No tanks. No missiles. No fighter jets,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to multiple times that Western allies have either refused to provide certain types of weapons to Ukraine or have strictly regulated their use. Denys withheld his last name and the location of his military unit in accordance with wartime regulations.

“And each ‘no’ costs lives. Not just ours. We’re big boys, we’ve seen life a bit, but those of children, the little children burned alive or blown to pieces …” the 27-year-old said, close to yelling, as he stood between a blossoming linden tree and an ice-cream kiosk in central Kyiv. “And then there’s a ‘maybe, maybe,’ and it goes on for months, and then there’s a ‘yes,’ but it’s always too late.”

Eventually, Western nations did agree to supply tanks, missiles and fighter jets – but after agonisingly long deliberations that cost lives, he said.

The latest “yes” from the United States and nearly a dozen Western nations that follows Russia’s recent advance and the relentless bombing of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, grants their permission to use the advanced weaponry they have supplied – or will supply soon – to strike inside Russia.

Washington and its allies have been afraid of antagonising Russia, whose President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly suggested that the use of nuclear weapons is on the table in the event that Ukraine or the West cross yet another “red line” such as the shelling of Crimea and Putin’s pet project, a bridge that links it to mainland Russia.

But Ukraine has already crossed many military and political Rubicons, including the expulsion of Russian troops from occupied areas and drone strikes on airfields, military bases, ports and oil depots deep in Russia. These acts have left Moscow fuming, but not enough to use nuclear weapons.

The latest Western “yes”, which came on Thursday and followed months of pleas from Kyiv, is more of a “yes, but”.

The White House said that Kyiv can start using US-supplied weapons for “limited strikes” within Russia – but only in areas adjacent to the northeastern Kharkiv region that sits along the Russian border.

Russian forces seized the region and its eponymous administrative capital in early 2022, but were pushed out months later following a manoeuvre masterminded by Ukraine’s current top general, Oleksandr Syrskii.

Moscow resumed its attempts to take over Kharkiv in early May, seizing several border villages next to the western Russian region of Belgorod. The existing artillery in the area allowed troops to advance on Ukrainian targets and then retreat back to Russian soil, where they knew they would be safe from Ukrainian defence forces.

The White House’s latest “yes, but” applies to air defence systems, artillery and guided rockets. There is still a ban on long-range missile strikes.

Other Western weapons that can now be used to hit Russia include 24 Dutch F-16 fighter jets armed with long-range missiles, and Soviet-era jets supplied by Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia and Northern Macedonia – countries that also granted their permissions in recent days.

Ukrainian pilots will soon complete their months-long training to fly F-16s and may fly their first sorties within weeks. Until now, their missions would have had to be limited to Ukrainian airspace. Not anymore.

The jets – along with a handful of Ukraine’s own Soviet aircraft – will be free to launch French-made air-launched cruise missiles known as Systeme de Croisiere Autonome a Longue Portee (SCALP) EG missiles.

The United Kingdom has not yet given permission to use the SCALP’s nearly identical twin missile, Storm Shadow – but has previously authorised the use of its attack drones on Russian soil. Turkey has also allowed Ukraine to use its Bayraktar drones there.

A SCALP-EG/Storm Shadow, which is a low observable, long-range air-launched cruise missile, on display at the International Paris Air Show 2023 [Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images]

The US, the UK, Germany and Norway have already supplied Ukraine with ground-based launchers for HIMARS and ATACMS missiles that initially proved effective in strikes on annexed Crimea and occupied Ukrainian regions.

But Russia has in recent weeks begun using advanced electronic jamming systems to render these satellite-guided missiles – along with GPS-guided Excalibur artillery shells – ineffective.

“They [Russians] advanced a lot,” said Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, the former deputy head of Ukraine’s General Staff of Armed Forces. “We’re taking it seriously. We have to create our own means of suppressing their electronic jamming and create our own jamming systems,” he told Al Jazeera.

But the Western permission will hardly be a game-changer.

“No tables will be turned. In the coming months, we’re talking about containing Russia,” Kyiv-based analyst Igar Tyshkevych told Al Jazeera.

The permission follows Western attempts to “find compromises with Russia,” he said. “This is slowly changing because Russia shows its real face – an empire that tries to conduct policies according to 19th-century patterns.”

The decision follows “constant, barbaric bombing” of Kharkiv and other border towns and Russia’s plans to start an offensive in northern Ukraine, at the forested conjunction of Kharkiv and Sumy regions, said Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher at Germany’s University of Bremen.

The offensive against Kharkiv may begin within weeks after the deployment of tens of thousands of newly conscripted and trained Russian servicemen.

“Ukrainian forces don’t have enough resources to cover the border, and will have to strike from the forests pretty far from the border,” Mitrokhin told Al Jazeera.

Ukraine faces a dire shortage of new servicemen. For months, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government postponed mobilisation, fearing a public outcry, and didn’t let seasoned, battle-weary veterans demobilise. The troop shortage coincided with a depletion of weapons and ammunition after months-long delays of Western supplies.

In recent weeks, teams of conscription and police officers have been detaining thousands of men in public places, from subway stations to traffic jams.

“There’s hope that Ukraine will succeed in destroying Russian columns at the marching stage, and artillery with multiple-launch rocket systems at the stage of their deployment,” Mitrokhin said.

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The United States Senate has passed a long-delayed multibillion-dollar aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, paving the way for new weapons deliveries to Kyiv as soon as this week.

The Democratic-controlled Senate passed the measure, held up for months by right-wing Republicans and part of a four-bill package, by 79 votes to 18 late on Tuesday night in the US.

“I will sign this bill into law and address the American people as soon as it reaches my desk tomorrow so we can begin sending weapons and equipment to Ukraine this week,” President Joe Biden said in a statement shortly afterwards.

Much of the assistance in the $95bn package is for Ukraine, which has struggled to fend off Russian forces along its 1,000km (600-mile) front line as weapons have dwindled.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed its final passage.

“Ukraine’s long-range capabilities, artillery, and air defence are critical tools for restoring just peace sooner,” he wrote on social media, saying the move reinforced “America’s role as a beacon of democracy and leader of the free world”.

The bill is worth $61bn to Ukraine but also provides $26bn for Israel, as well as humanitarian assistance in Gaza, Sudan and Haiti, as well as more than $8bn in military support for Taiwan, the democratic island China claims as its own.

Taipei has said it will discuss with the US how to use the funding. Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, which has not ruled out the use of force to take control of the island, said it “resolutely opposes” the inclusion of what it called “Taiwan-related content” in the aid package.

Turning the corner

Additional funding for Ukraine has been the subject of months of acrimonious debate among lawmakers over how, or even whether, to help the country defend itself, with hardline Republicans linked to former President Donald Trump demanding concessions over the US’s southern border policy in exchange for their support.

A similar package passed the Senate in February but was stalled in the House of Representatives until Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, a Trump loyalist, had a sudden change of heart earlier this month, proposing to repackage the measure into four bills.

The new package, which also allows Biden to confiscate and sell Russian assets and provide the money to Kyiv to finance reconstruction, secured approval in the House on April 20, with 311 voting in favour and 112 against.

The Senate’s Democratic and Republican leaders said the vote signalled that Congress was back on track.

“This national security bill is one of the most important measures Congress has passed in a very long time to protect American security and the security of Western democracy,” Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters after the vote.

Senate Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican and a strong supporter of assistance for Ukraine, expressed regret about the delay.

“I think we’ve turned the corner on the isolationist movement,” McConnell said.

The Reuters and Associated Press news agencies reported on Monday that Biden’s administration was already preparing the first tranche of military assistance linked to the bill with a focus on weapons that could be put to immediate use on the battlefield.

It was not immediately clear how the money for Israel, which already receives billions of dollars in security assistance from the US every year, would affect the conflict in Gaza.

Aid supporters hope the humanitarian assistance will help Palestinians in the territory, which has been devastated by Israel’s bombardment and is facing famine.

At least 34,183 Palestinians have been killed since the conflict erupted in October after Hamas launched an unprecedented assault on Israel, killing more than 1,100 people and taking dozens more captive.

The package of measures also included legislation to ban the popular video-sharing app TikTok unless it divests from its Chinese parent company.

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The increase is 10 times as many new men as the 12 brigades Ukraine raised for its 2023 counteroffensive, and it could enable the country to finally break Russia’s stranglehold on its southern regions, cutting the front in half and forcing the Kremlin into a negotiation on Kyiv’s terms.

Ukraine may have little choice because it is currently fighting a war of attrition experts say favours the side with greater manpower resources – Russia. It also seems likely that Russian President Vladimir Putin would raise more troops after his re-election.

“Putin is… planning to mobilise more men, once the election is over,” Tim Less, a lecturer at Cambridge University’s Centre for Geopolitics, told Al Jazeera.

“Among other things, he has banned the exit of fighting-age men from the country and banned the antiwar candidate, Boris Nadezhdin, from standing in the election, for fear he may generate opposition to the war effort,” said Less. “Putin appears to have concluded that further mobilisation is essential to press home Russia’s advantage on the battlefield and that this is what he will do.”

With US aid stalled – perhaps permanently – by congressional Republicans, Putin may have concluded that 2024 was his year to win the war and that forces the moment to its crisis for Ukraine.

“It’s been two years of hell for us,” said Inna Sovsun, who sits on the Security, Defence and Intelligence Committee of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, where the bill is being discussed.

Her partner has been fighting on the front lines since Russia’s invasion and she supports raising more troops, but only if there’s an end in sight for those who’ve already served.

“There are people who are leading normal lives. We would like to know there is a point in the future when he will be demobilised and someone else will take his place. This is being hotly debated and there is no answer right now,” she told Al Jazeera.

Ukraine mobilised men over the age of 27 when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of the country on February 24, 2022. But only a third of its million men and women in uniform are on active combat duty, facing what Kyiv estimates are 462,000 Russian soldiers, and Russia’s Putin claims are 617,000.

The rest of Ukraine’s personnel are in supporting roles, including tens of thousands posted to the currently quiet northern border with Belarus, from where Moscow’s original main thrust towards Kyiv came, lest it should be repeated.

A more efficient rotation of those in uniform might fill some combat roles, but not enough, says the military.

There are also some tens of thousands to be gleaned from closing loopholes to the draft.

Oleksandr, a Ukrainian soldier who suffered a head injury during combat sits in a stabilisation point point after paramedical treatment in the Donetsk region amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine [Thomas Peter/Reuters]

After Russia’s invasion, young men rushed to enrol in PhD programmes at private colleges and there was an uptick in marriages to women with minor disabilities. The committee is closing these and other exemptions.

But that is where the low-hanging fruit ends and the difficult decisions begin.

Last December, after the counteroffensive failed to execute his strategy, then-Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi put the matter on the table, demanding half a million more soldiers.

“This is a significant number,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after meeting his top generals, apparently unconvinced that the economy could spare them, or allies could train and equip them.

“I told them I need more arguments to support this direction, because this is a matter of people first and foremost,” Zelenskyy said.

The Verkhovna Rada had already passed a bill in the spring of 2023, lowering the conscription age from 27 to 25.

Zelenskyy didn’t sign it, and last month he dismissed Zaluzhny – it is believed, partly due to this disagreement.

“What Zelenskyy is actually doing is trying to leverage more arms from the West, which he sees either as an alternative to mobilisation or a precondition for this, while allowing his new commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskii, to assess the situation on the ground,” said Less.

Sovsun believed the lowering of the draft age is a foregone conclusion and parliament “will get it done by the end of March”.

The committee has discarded punitive measures included in a January 4 draft seen as human rights violations, such as freezing draft dodgers’ bank accounts or preventing them from selling property – though a travel ban outside Ukraine will likely remain.

The debate now focuses on creating incentives for enlisting, said Sovsun, such as guaranteeing six-monthly rotations and a term limit of 36 months.

“The 36-month [term limit] is still in play in a very specific way – we don’t particularly like the wording – that those who serve will have the right to demobilize after 36 months based on the decision of the commander-in-chief,” she said. “Basically, if the decision is not taken it doesn’t happen. [We want it] to be automatic.”

The measure could mean an exodus of experienced troops in March 2025, but Sovsun believes it is necessary.

“There are some units that have been on the front line for 24 months. That is extremely difficult and it’s inefficient. People need rest,” she said.

In theory, Ukraine has a pool of 10 million men aged 18-61 it can draw on to replace demobilised troops. In practice that number may be smaller.

Ukraine had a population of 48 million in 2001, but as much as a quarter of it is willingly or unwillingly under occupation, and many people fled from unoccupied western regions, too, when the invasion happened.

Then there is the human factor Zelenskyy alluded to.

“People are extremely tired. [The war] has taken its toll on everybody, and I started thinking, how many years can people live like this?” Sovsun said.

A NATO-Russia war?

Perhaps partly to boost Ukrainian morale, and to send a message to Russia, French President Emmanuel Macron on February 26 raised the issue of sending in NATO troops – raising the risk of a Russia-NATO war.

While there was “no consensus” on the sending of Western ground troops to Ukraine, “nothing should be excluded. We will do whatever it takes to ensure that Russia cannot win this war,” Macron said.

“[Macron’s] generals and members of his cabinet have spoken specifically about the idea of deploying forces in supporting roles – clearing mines, manning defences and training Ukrainian soldiers, for example – to free up the Ukrainians to confront the Russians on the front line,” said Less.

Russia may see it differently, preparing to face the West directly.

“The Kremlin has for over a decade now … spoken of a war with the West,” Rory Finnin, a Ukraine historian at Cambridge University, told Al Jazeera.

“We may not have been interested in that war, but clearly their war is interested in us. I don’t think it’s simply a war against Ukraine … Russia wants to see dysfunction and division in the West. It’s the only way it can amplify its own power.”

Jade McGlynn, a Russia expert at the War Studies Department of King’s College London, agrees that Russia is psychologically prepared to fight the West directly.

“If the West had been totally against Russia [after the Cold War], that would have been different, but sometimes there are things that are worse than being hated. For example, being ignored,” McGlynn told Al Jazeera. “And that keeps coming up.”

For now, though, Ukrainians have to count on their strength alone.

“There is no justice in war,” said Sovsun. “There is no just way to say who should serve and who shouldn’t and there is no fair way of doing this, but at least it should be more equally distributed, this weight of war.”

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Russia achieved its first major territorial success in more than nine months in the Ukraine war, capturing the eastern city of Avdiivka last week. The once-bustling community of 30,000 civilians was gone and it was doubtful whether the local employer, Europe’s biggest coking plant, could be returned to operability soon. But the capture offered Russian President Vladimir Putin bragging rights ahead of the election he faces in March.

Russian forces began to press Ukrainian defenders in earnest last October, after Ukraine’s three-month-long summer counteroffensive had ended, promising to deal Ukraine a winter blow.

They formed a pincer to the north and south of the city, and during the four months of most intense fighting Ukraine’s Tavria forces commander, Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, estimated they had sustained 47,000 casualties, and lost 364 tanks, 248 artillery systems, 748 armoured fighting vehicles and five aircraft.

The news fell like a bombshell on the continuing Munich Security Conference, where Ukraine’s Western allies convened to survey a gloomy outlook for 2024.

“The era of peace in Europe is over,” Dmytro Kuleba, Ukrainian foreign minister, told those present.

“And every time Ukrainian soldiers withdraw from a Ukrainian town because of the lack of ammunition, think of it not only in terms of democracy and defending the world-based order, but also in terms of Russian soldiers getting a few kilometres closer to your towns.”

(Al Jazeera)

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also seized upon the moment to press allies for more weapons supplies.

“Unfortunately, keeping Ukraine in artificial deficits of weapons, particularly in deficits of artillery and long-range capabilities, allows Putin to adapt to the current intensity of the war. This self-weakening of democracy over time undermines our joint results,” Zelenskyy told the conference.

Many Ukrainians squarely blame the United States for the emboldening of Russia, as a $60.6bn military assistance measure for Ukraine remains stalled in Congress.

“In 2022, the [US] administration [of Joe Biden] submitted funding requests in the spring, almost immediately after the invasion,” wrote Kyiv School of Economics director Tymofiy Mylovanov.

“But in 2023, it waited until mid-fall to announce what it plans to submit,” he said.

“Avdiivka demonstrates the cost of these political delays: human lives, lost territory, and encouraged Russia. If that’s the plan ‘to be with Ukraine as long as it takes’, then the US delays in aid have just prolonged the war.”

How did Russia do it?

The key to breaking the months-long impasse on the ground seems to have come from the air.

“Russian forces appear to have temporarily established limited and localised air superiority and were able to provide ground troops with close air support during the final days of their offensive operation,” said the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

Sergei Shoigu, Russian defence minister, said Moscow’s forces had made 450 high-precision air strikes in the final days of the campaign for Avdiivka.

Many of those came in the form of glide bombs, massive unpowered munitions fitted with adjustable fins to travel further than ordinary inertial bombs and strike with greater precision. One Ukrainian soldier reported 60 being dropped on February 17 alone.

The use of forward air power came at a cost. Ukraine shot down two Sukhoi-34s and a Sukhoi-35 over Donetsk on Saturday as they performed sorties to drop glide bombs. On Monday they shot down another Sukhoi-34 and a Sukhoi-35 striking Ukrainian positions with glide bombs, and a Sukhoi-34 on Wednesday.

In all, Ukraine said it shot down seven planes in five days.

(Al Jazeera)

The first signs that Ukraine’s defences around Avdiivka were failing came on Thursday, when geolocated footage showed Russian forces advancing to new positions south of the city.

On Saturday, Ukraine’s newly appointed commander in chief, Oleksandr Syrskii, said he ordered Ukrainian units to withdraw early in the morning in order to avoid encirclement and capture. Geolocated footage showed Russian troops entering Avdiivka along a railway line running past quarries to the northeast of the city and to the coking plant in the east. By evening Russia claimed “full control” over Avdiivka.

Shoigu also claimed that Ukrainian forces had withdrawn in great disarray, suffering a large number of dead, wounded and captured men. He may have overstated the case.

The New York Times quoted unnamed Western officials confirming that a “significant” number of Ukrainian troops may have been captured. Two Ukrainian soldiers put the number at 850 to 1,000. But Tavria Group spokesman Dmytro Lykhovyi said that report was influenced by Russian information operations, and the actual number captured was much smaller.

(Al Jazeera)

It remains an open question whether Russian forces can keep repeating the formula that helped them capture Avdiivka in other areas of the front. Russian forces in the last week also ramped up their attacks on the eastern cities of Lyman and Kupiansk, which some observers believe are their next targets, on Robotyne, in western Zaporizhia, which Ukraine recaptured last year, and on Ukrainian positions on the left bank of the Dnipro river in Kherson.

Beyond the symbolic loss of another town, the first since Bakhmut fell in May last year, Avdiivka may offer Russia few strategic advantages.

“Avdiivka offers Russian forces limited avenues for future advance,” said the ISW. “Ukrainian forces have long fortified many of the surrounding settlements, which Russian forces are also struggling to capture.”

Western support for Ukraine

The week also brought some good news for Ukraine.

The fall of Avdiivka prompted Denmark’s prime minister to donate all of the country’s remaining artillery assets to Ukraine, prompting others to a similar shift in attitudes.

“We, Denmark, have decided to transfer all our artillery to Ukraine,” wrote Mette Frederiksen on X, formerly Twitter.

“There is military equipment in Europe … We have weapons, ammunition, air defense systems, which we do not use yet. They must be handed over to Ukraine.”

France and Germany pledged to lead an air coalition to supply Ukraine with a million First Person View drones, with a total of nine countries saying they planned to join. Germany and Ukraine signed a multi-year defence cooperation agreement including $7.5bn in defence transfers this year alone.

Lithuania said it was stepping up delivery of artillery rounds to Ukraine, and Norwegian-Finnish ammunition manufacturer Nammo said it was adopting a round-the-clock schedule at a plant in Sweden to increase the production of 155mm artillery shells for Ukraine.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg also said the alliance was opening a training centre for Ukrainian personnel in Poland.

(Al Jazeera)

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“Gazprom supplies Russian gas for transit through Ukrainian territory in the volume confirmed by the Ukrainian side via the Sudzha gas pumping station – 42 mln cubic meters as of February 4. The nomination for the Sokhranovka gas pumping station has been rejected,” he said. On Saturday, February 3, the pumping volume equated 42.4 mln cubic meters.

Earlier it was reported on the website of the Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine (GTSOU) that nominations for transit of Russian gas to Europe through Ukrainian territory on February 4 could be about 42 mln cubic meters.

The transit line through Ukraine remains the only route to supply Russian gas to western and central European countries. The pumping through the Nord Stream gas pipeline has been fully suspended. Gas deliveries over the TurkStream gas pipeline are intended for Turkey and countries of South and Southeastern Europe.

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Michel said the move “locks in steadfast, long-term, predictable funding for Ukraine” and demonstrates that the “EU is taking leadership and responsibility in support for Ukraine; we know what is at stake“.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the EU’s approval of the aid package would strengthen long-term economic and financial stability as the war with Russia approaches its third year.

“It is very important that the decision was made by all 27 leaders, which once again proves strong EU unity,” he posted on X.

‘Until victory’

Ukraine has become increasingly desperate to secure funding from Western countries in recent months, with political delays to both US and EU aid bolstering Russian confidence amid the bogged-down war.

In December, the bloc agreed on the latest aid package, which would run through to 2027, and decided to make Ukraine a candidate for EU membership, which Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban reluctantly accepted.

But Orban, who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was angry at the European Commission’s decision to block his government’s access to some of the bloc’s funds, which they did over concerns about possible threats to the EU budget by Hungary.

In response to the lack of access, Orban vetoed several issues at the EU.

“I don’t want to use the word blackmail, but I don’t know what other better word” might fit, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told reporters as she arrived for Thursday’s crunch meeting.

“Hungary needs Europe,” she said. “He should also look into what it is in it for Hungary, being in Europe,” added Kallas, referring to Orban.

After the deal was sealed, Kallas noted that it was an “important signal to Ukraine that the EU stands behind you long-term, until victory”.

Latvia’s Prime Minister Evika Silina also posted on X that the agreement was “excellent news for the security of Latvia and all of Europe”.

‘Great sense of relief’

Ukraine expects to receive the first tranche of 4.5 billion euros ($4.9bn) from the EU facility in March, the Ministry of Economy said on Thursday.

Reporting from Kyiv, Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride said there was “a great sense of relief” in Ukraine after the announcement of the deal.

“This guarantees funding for four years, so it gives a longer-term sense of security. There’s also a lot of talk here about some of these funds going into an investment fund to try to attract private sector investment,” he added.

Orban said that he had received guarantees about billions of euros in suspended EU aid in return for lifting Hungary’s veto.

“We finally negotiated a control mechanism to guarantee that the money would be used sensibly, and we received a guarantee that Hungary’s money would not end up in Ukraine” he said.

Reporting from Brussels, Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler said the EU were keen to send a message of unity.

It was important for the EU “to send the message to Moscow that they are united when it comes to Ukraine, particularly in a difficult year in which we have the US elections – they know there is a lot of uncertainty ahead”, she added.

The EU funding is especially significant as a similar aid package from the US continues to be blocked due to internal political disputes and is further complicated by the presidential election in November.

“US funding to Ukraine became a hostage of domestic US politics,” Hlib Vyshlinsky, executive director of the Centre for Economic Strategy, told Al Jazeera.

“It was very hard for Ukraine to do anything with it in a year of presidential elections in the United States.”

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The past week of Russia’s war in Ukraine was remarkable, chiefly for something that happened thousands of kilometres to the east of a hardened battlefront.

In an apparent sabotage operation of breathtaking audacity, Ukrainian operatives blew up two freight trains in east Siberia travelling on a track believed to be used to shuttle North Korean-made ordnance to the Russian front lines in Ukraine.

A freight train caught fire in the 15km-long (9.3-mile) Severomuysky Tunnel in the Republic of Buryatia on the night of November 29, the East Siberian Transport Prosecutor’s office reported.

Ukrainian media cited intelligence sources as saying four explosive devices had been planted on the railway, one of two rail links between Russia and China, reportedly also used for ferrying ammunition.

“During the movement of the freight train, four explosive devices went off,” the Ukrainian intelligence source was quoted as saying.

“Now the [Russian Federal Security Service] FSB is working on the spot, railway workers are unsuccessfully trying to minimise the consequences of the SBU special operation,” the source said, referring to the Security Service of Ukraine by its acronym.

The train in question was believed to be carrying 44 cars of refined fuel. At least three were destroyed. A successful detonation might have disabled the tunnel, and that indeed appeared to be the goal of the saboteurs, who told Ukrainian media the route was “paralysed”.

Russian media said, “The explosion seriously damaged the rails, and the leaked fuel flooded them”.

Expecting trains to be rerouted through a northern pass of the Baikal-Amur track, the SBU apparently staged a second explosion on a second fuel train as it passed over a bridge in an unspecified location. Four fuel tanks were destroyed and another two were damaged.

Ukraine has every reason to disable this route. North Korea is believed to have sent Russia more than a million artillery shells to discharge in Ukraine.

Satellite images the Washington Post published on October 16 suggested that two Russian ships had successfully transported cargo from the North Korean free trade zone port of Rason to Russia’s port of Dunai several times since August.

From Dunai, the containers would most likely traverse the vast Russian landmass via rail.

A  Washington Post analysis suggested shipments began in mid-August, and US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby confirmed on October 13 that as many as 1,000 containers’ worth of North Korean weapons had reached Russia between September 7 and October 1.

Zelenskyy expects intense Russian air campaign

Ukraine was also continuing to focus on disrupting Russian supply routes in Crimea.

The Russian defence ministry said electronic warfare systems and air defences downed a total of 35 Ukrainian drones targeting the port of Feodosia in east Crimea on December 1.

“Apparently, the Ukrainian Armed Forces intended to hit the oil depot and power plant in the city,” said one Russian report. It was not clear if any drones struck their targets.

Russia launched more drones against Ukraine during the week – a total of 83 from November 30 to December 5. Ukraine’s air force said it downed 62 of them.

Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said Russia had increased its own production of Iranian-designed Shahed drones, and they were likely to be Russia’s main weapon targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure during winter.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also expected an intense Russian air campaign this winter targeting electricity and water utilities, he said in an interview with the AP.

Resources were one principal criterion for success in the war, resolve was the other, said Nigel Gould-Davies, chief Eurasia analyst for the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based think tank.

He was speaking at the launch of the IISS’s flagship annual publication, the Armed Conflict Survey.

“The GDP [gross domestic product] of the West vastly exceeds Russia’s by a factor of 12,” said Gould-Davies.

“But … there are growing signs now, and more have appeared in the last few days, that… the West may be inferior in resolve. We have budget struggles in the [US] House [of Representatives] and now the [US] Senate and the EU are increasingly wrangling over budgetary support for Ukraine,” he said.

House and Senate Republicans have been insisting on tying military aid for Ukraine to strengthening border security with Mexico, and a socially conservative agenda.

Zelenskyy told the AP these tensions were frustrating, but he “can’t complain too much”.

“Look, we are not backing down, I am satisfied. We are fighting with the second (best) army in the world, I am satisfied,” he told the AP, referring to the Russian military.

He added: “We are losing people, I’m not satisfied. We didn’t get all the weapons we wanted, I can’t be satisfied, but I also can’t complain too much.”

But there were also signs of dissatisfaction in Russia.

A Russian opposition polling organisation, Chronicles, published a survey on November 30 suggesting that Russians who supported the war, opposed any withdrawal of troops before military aims had been achieved and supported heightened military spending had nearly halved during the year, from 22 per cent to 12 per cent.

A consistent 39-40 per cent during 2023 supported a withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine without Russia achieving its war aims.

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