Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley this week declared that Russia has “lost” the war with Ukraine, despite the war hitting the one-year mark next week and both sides gearing up for a fight in the spring.

“In short, Russia has lost. They’ve lost strategically, operationally and tactically. And they are paying an enormous price on the battlefield,” he said in Brussels on Tuesday after the ninth meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.

That message was different than one he delivered just last month, when he said that he did not see Ukraine ejecting Russian troops this year.

“From a military standpoint, I still maintain that for this year it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from all — every inch of Ukraine and occupied — or Russian-occupied Ukraine. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, doesn’t mean it won’t happen, but it’d be very, very difficult,” Milley had said in Germany on January 20.

He also said at that time that he believed that the war would end “at some sort of negotiating table.”

CNN reported as far back as November that Milley had argued within the administration for a negotiated solution, but that others in the Biden White House disagreed.

Milley’s optimism that Russia has already “lost” also comes as the U.S. and the west is arming Ukraine with billions of weaponry of increasing lethality in advance of an expected Russian offensive in the spring.

The U.S. military has already provided more than $27 billion in military equipment to Ukraine, much of it from its own stocks.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, speaking right before Milley:

Among the members of this Contact Group, we have given Ukraine’s defenders more than eight combat brigades. This includes major contributions from the United States of Strykers and Bradleys and Abrams tanks. It includes the U.K.’s donation of Challenger tanks and the contribution of Senator Armored Personnel Carriers that Canada announced last month. It also includes the refurbished T-72 tanks that the United States, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic are in the process of delivering, as well as Poland’s latest donation of T-72s, and it includes the important steps from Germany, Poland, Canada, Portugal, Spain, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands on Leopard battle tanks.

Now, we also heard today about significant new air defense donations. That includes Italy and France, which jointly announced that they will provide Ukraine with the SAMP/T air defense system, and France also announced that it will work with Australia to ramp up 155 millimeter ammunition production to support Ukraine. And finally, let me also thank Norway, which just announced that it will provide 7.5 billion euros in military and civilian assistance to Ukraine over the coming five years. Now, that’s a very significant commitment.

Austin also reissued the Biden administration’s policy that the U.S. would support Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”

There are signs that the U.S. public is growing less enthusiastic in their support of the war.

A recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll showed that 48 percent of those polled say they favor the U.S. providing weapons to Ukraine, down from 60 percent in May 2022.

The poll also showed that Americans are split on sending government funds directly to Ukraine, with 37 percent in favor, 38 percent opposed and 23 percent saying neither.

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