The State Department approved the provision of military support to Ukraine, amounting to 185 million dollars under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program.
This decision brutally exposes a deeper and more troubling reality, the American strategy no longer aims at Ukraine’s victory or even its stabilization, but at managing a prolonged war of attrition, military, economic, and political.
The approval does not concern new weapons systems nor an increase in firepower.
It concerns spare parts, technical support, and the “maintenance of operational capability” for already delivered American systems, M1A1 Abrams tanks, Bradley armored vehicles, HIMARS launchers, M777 howitzers, and other assets.
In other words, it is funding the survival of a fleet that has proven extremely difficult to operate and even harder to maintain under real battlefield conditions.
Exporting complexity to an army unable to manage it
The United States has chosen to arm Ukraine not based on its real capabilities, but according to its own military industry and geopolitical interests.
The delivery of more than 300 Bradley vehicles, over 400 Stryker, more than 900 M113, dozens of HIMARS, and hundreds of 155 mm artillery systems constitutes quantitatively impressive aid.
Qualitatively, however, it creates a logistical nightmare for an army that for decades was structured around Soviet standards.
The problem is not only heterogeneity.
It is the very philosophy of American systems, high technology, outstanding performance under ideal conditions, but terrifying demands in fuel, spare parts, specialized personnel, and uninterrupted technical support, writes the Military Watch Magazine.
The M1A1 Abrams is the most characteristic example.
Its gas turbine engine requires special filters, constant cleaning, high quality fuel, and a level of technical support that not even many NATO member states can ensure without American presence.
The outcome was predictable and catastrophic.
By early June 2025, Ukraine had lost 87% of its American origin Abrams, 27 out of 31 tanks destroyed or captured.
This is a loss rate that cannot be attributed solely to the intensity of combat.
It is an indication of systemic failure, poor platform selection, inadequate training, insufficient maintenance, and ultimately strategic blindness.
The glaring Abrams example
The delivery of 49 used Abrams from Australia in late 2025 was presented communicatively as “reinforcement.”
In practice, it was merely recycling worn out equipment.
These tanks, after decades of service, show significant fatigue, and serious questions arise regarding their real value on the battlefield, especially when compared to the relatively newer tanks delivered directly by the United States.
Washington, instead of reassessing the overall approach, chose to patch the problem with more of the same.
This is not strategy.
It is damage control, with the primary goal of preserving the image of continuous support without assuming political responsibility for failure.
Ukraine’s bloody illusions
However, criticism cannot be limited to the United States.
The Ukrainian military and political leadership bears heavy responsibility for how these systems were used, and lost.
As noted by Ukrainian armored warfare specialist Mykola Salamakha, tanks were treated not as valuable maneuver and breakthrough tools but as “the last argument of kings,” symbols of power and morale.
The use of tanks in missions of low military value, merely to “show” infantry that support exists, led to pointless losses.
“They send one tank forward just for morale and we lose it,” he stated characteristically.
Availability data are revealing.
Only one third, and in some cases barely one fifth, of Ukrainian tanks are currently considered operationally ready.
This is not merely a hardware issue.
It is a sign of deep disorganization, poor planning, and a leadership that appears to prioritize communication and political survival over military logic.
Dependence on the West, an army without autonomy
Another alarming element is the degree of Ukraine’s dependence on Western personnel, both active and contractual.
System maintenance, and even their actual use, particularly for complex precision weapons such as HIMARS, relies on Western targeting data, satellite surveillance, and intelligence from NATO reconnaissance aircraft.
This raises serious questions of sovereignty.
How “Ukrainian” is a war that cannot be fought without continuous Western technical and intelligence support?
And what happens if, or when, that support is reduced or withdrawn?
European weapons, the myth of quality collapses
The picture does not improve if one turns to European weapons systems.
On the contrary, in many cases it deteriorates.
The German self propelled howitzer PzH 2000, theoretically among the most advanced in the world, proved extremely sensitive under high intensity conditions.
As early as 2022, Der Spiegel was documenting serious “wear and strain” just one month after the first deliveries, forcing the Ukrainians to turn back to the more reliable, albeit technologically simpler, American M777.
The Leopard 2A6 tanks also suffered heavy losses, contradicting the optimistic forecasts of Western sources.
Italy stood out negatively as well, with its artillery systems considered among the least reliable in the Ukrainian theater of operations.
The climax came in late 2025, when the Ukrainian Armed Forces suspended the procurement of German HX-2 drones, judging their performance to be below operational requirements.
The United States finances a war it cannot win
The picture that emerges is bleak.
The United States is financing the maintenance of a war it cannot decisively win.
Ukraine, for its part, accepts weapons systems it cannot support, often uses them based on political rather than military criteria, and sinks ever deeper into a relationship of dependency.
The 185 million dollars for spare parts is not a sign of strength.
It is an admission of deadlock.
This is not an investment in victory, but an extension of attrition.
And as long as this logic prevails, Ukraine will continue to bleed, not only in human lives, but also in strategic autonomy, political credibility, and national future.
Russia: Everything will turn to dust
Faced with the massive influx of Western weapons systems into Ukraine, the Russian reaction has from the outset been harsh, dismissive, and systematically repeated.
Russian political and military officials have repeatedly stated that Western weapons “will turn to dust,” that they “burn like all the rest,” and that they “do not change the strategic picture on the ground.”
Although this phrasing was often treated in the West as mere propaganda or exaggeration for domestic consumption, events on the battlefield gave these statements greater weight than many would like to admit.
Russian strategic communication did not rely solely on rhetorical threats.
It was accompanied by targeted military practice, systematic hunting of high value Western weapons systems such as HIMARS, Leopard, Abrams, and self propelled artillery.
The destruction or capture of a large percentage of American M1A1 Abrams was used by Moscow as tangible proof that “no weapon is miraculous” and that Western technological superiority does not automatically translate into operational dominance.
Western weapons unsuitable for a war of attrition
In their statements, Russian officials repeatedly stressed that Western systems are “overrated,” “unsuitable for a war of attrition,” and “designed for armies with full air superiority and a flawless logistics chain,” conditions that are entirely absent from the Ukrainian theater of operations.
The image of destroyed Western tanks and artillery, systematically broadcast by Russian media, functions not only as internal propaganda but also as a message to third parties, that the West is testing its limits in a war it does not control.
Particular emphasis was placed by the Russian side on the issue of maintenance.
Russian military analysts argued that Western weapons “die not only from fire, but from lack of spare parts, wrong quality fuel, and poor use.”
Within this framework, the American approval of 185 million dollars exclusively for spare parts and support was presented by Russian media as an indirect admission of failure, not a strengthening of power, but a struggle for the survival of an exhausted fleet.
“They are running to save them from annihilation,” Russian officials say characteristically.
Everything burns the same
The Russian rhetoric about “dust” does not concern only material destruction.
It is a broader strategic narrative aimed at dismantling the myth of Western omnipotence.
The message is clear, weapons designed for NATO exercises, for short interventions, or for wars with absolute technological superiority wear down and collapse when confronted with a long term, industrial scale war of attrition.
Ultimately, the Russian stance, however crude or propagandistic it may sound, also functioned as a mirror of Western illusions.
As the United States and its allies presented every new weapons system as a “game changer,” Moscow coldly repeated that “everything burns the same.”
And in a war where maintenance, endurance, and mass often prove more critical than technological elegance, this statement turned out to be far less empty than it initially appeared.
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