Resolve needed amid Russian missile strikes

Opinion editor's note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

•••

Russia's response this week to an attack on a critical Crimean bridge reflected the difference between the governments in Kyiv and Moscow.

The strike on the Kerch Strait Bridge, which the Ukrainian government has not officially claimed responsibility for, was strategic. It crimped a vital supply line to territory Russia illegally cleaved through force and a sham referendum — the same method Moscow used to annex Crimea itself in 2014.

Conversely, the Kremlin's response — missile and drone attacks on noncombatants in multiple Ukrainian cities — wasn't militarily strategic, however tragic. It took at least 20 lives and injured scores more innocents, including women and children. But it did not demonstrably alter the course of a war in which Ukraine has more military momentum, methodically retaking territory from the invaders.

Russia's random strikes mean "Ukraine is winning, and Russia is reduced to strategically irrelevant war crimes, simply granting punishment on Ukrainian civilians," John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told an editorial writer.

Herbst, now senior director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, characterized the Kerch Strait Bridge as a "perfectly legitimate target," given its use as an "essential logistical hub" for Russian troops. Russia's retaliatory strikes, he said, are "awful" and "evil," yet "also irrelevant, because Ukraine is not going to surrender because civilians are dying."

Following the G-7 session, top defense officials from about 50 nations began meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels. The U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group will focus on sustaining the materiel it has supplied, which has made a difference in Ukraine's existential fight for its country.

In just the latest example, Ukraine announced on Wednesday that Germany had delivered the first of four highly sophisticated missile-defense systems. Meanwhile, member states of the European Union got behind a proposal to create a new mission to train thousands of Ukrainian troops on using new weapons systems.

The Contact Group "stands united and determined," U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the meeting. "We will continue to boost Ukraine's defensive capabilities — for today's urgent needs and for the long haul."

Austin added that $16.8 billion worth of U.S. security assistance has already been spent to aid Ukraine. In doing so, the Biden administration has had to balance two considerations, Jeffrey Pryce, a former Department of Defense official who is now a professorial lecturer at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told an editorial writer. "One is providing as much and as effective assistance to Ukraine as possible while at the same time controlling the risk of escalation and not allowing [the war] to spill out and involve other countries."

The assistance, Pryce said, has been "very large and really quite effective. And you'll probably see more of it in the coming days."

The United Nations General Assembly, which unlike the U.N. Security Council is not held hostage by Russian and Chinese vetoes, concurred on Wednesday in a lopsided vote condemning Russia's illegal annexations.

And yet, the brutality rightly identified in the national security strategy is likely to intensify, particularly as hard-liners demand unceasing civilian strikes. That tactic is likely to harden Ukrainian and allied resolve, as happened with London in World War II and Hanoi during the Vietnam War.

Herbst credited the Biden administration for its support but said more needs to be done, and sooner. Ultimately, he added, it's in America's interest.

"If we pursue our own interests, give Ukraine just about everything it's asked for because everything [requested] absolutely has been legitimate, Ukraine would probably have much more control of its territory," Herbst said. And, he added, more Ukrainians would be alive.