"A profound shift": U.S. boosts supply of heavy weapons to Ukraine

Officials say the change in policy is the result of several factors, including a desire to do more to help Kyiv following evidence of atrocities in the areas Russian troops occupied before retreating from the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital.

There has also been a reassessment of the threat posed by Russia’s nuclear arsenal, a sabre that Putin rattled early in the war but one which analysts now believe he is unlikely to deploy. And the US is trying to respond to the changing needs of the Ukrainian military as it prepares to fend off a renewed assault by Moscow in the Donbas region in the east of the country.

The US opposed a Polish scheme to supply MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine’s air force, but has since facilitated the supply of spare parts to Kyiv to get 20 warplanes back in the air © Reuters
One of the most important triggers for the shift, current and former officials say, has been the surprisingly effective performance of the Ukrainian military, which has outshone even the most optimistic expectations of military analysts inside and outside the Pentagon.

“At the beginning, the estimates were that the Ukrainian military couldn’t hold out for more than a handful of weeks,” said Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator on the Senate foreign relations committee. “If that’s your assessment, of course, the equipment you’re going to be sending is different than if you expect a war that’s going to last months and years.”