Free Republic

Meetings between NATO and U.S. defense officials left allies concerned that President Donald Trump would leave Europe to ensure a lasting peace in the war-scarred country.“There’s the dawning reality that this will be Europe making this happen on the ground,” said a NATO diplomat who was briefed on the talks. “The U.S. is not fully committed to anything.” The meetings — which occurred days after Trump and European leaders met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House in a sign of unity — underscore the massive task ahead for allies as they weigh plans to send a peacekeeping...

Ukraine is bracing for a grisly Russian offensive in the Donbas. Moscow has concentrated hundreds of thousands of troops in the country’s east, using brute-force tactics and human waves in a bid to chip away at the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ defenses. Amid a recent surge in fighting, many military analysts believe the long-awaited Russian offensive is already underway and is expected to accelerate as the first anniversary of the invasion approaches. “Something is brewing in the east,” said Jonatan Vseviov, secretary-general of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “More and more Russian soldiers are arriving on the front,” he said....

The U.S. Defense Department believes that as many as 80,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine less than six months ago, a top Pentagon official told reporters today... The United States has now provided nearly $10 billion in military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion, nearly twice Kyiv’s military budget in 2021... The Pentagon initially estimated that Russia deployed about 120 battalion tactical groups, the Kremlin’s go-to combined arms unit, for the war—numbering around 100,000 troops. Experts said the new casualty estimate is likely to include Russian paramilitary and volunteer forces,...