This is how Kherson was left after the withdrawal of Russian troops 3:06
(CNN) --
By bombing Ukraine's power grid, meant to sustain civilians during the dark and cold months, Vladimir Putin has inflicted some of the most barbaric conditions of warfare civilians in Europe have experienced for decades and led to the conflict to another level.
The use of winter as a weapon of war is designed to break the will of a nation that has humiliated Russian forces, and to test the generosity of Western publics footing the bill for Ukraine's defense.
It is also forcing President Joe Biden and other leaders to make a new round of adjustments to the support of weapons and aid supporting the Ukrainian resistance.
First on CNN: US considering drastically expanding training of Ukrainian forces, US officials say
The intensity of Moscow's deliberate attacks on civilians has also reignited questions about whether and when the world should press for a diplomatic end to the war, as well as a growing domestic political debate over how long it should take. multi-million dollar aid last.
This pressure, especially within the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives, tends to increase when Putin carries out his calculated nuclear maneuvers and when there are fears that the war will spill over into NATO territory.
These issues were at the center of Thursday's talks between Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron, the West's two most critical leaders who will be essential to any eventual ceasefire and who have at times differed on whether diplomacy can work with a leader as ruthless as Putin.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin walks into the hall during the plenary session of the 10th All-Russian Congress of Judges at the State Kremlin Palace November 29, 2022, in Moscow.
The US studies a huge new training mission
In any case, Biden's determination to help Ukraine win the war on the battlefield is only growing, even as Macron, who has been more open to diplomatic efforts, keeps an open channel with the Russian leader.
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As it has done throughout the war, the administration is constantly recalibrating its aid based on new conditions.
CNN's Oren Liebermann, Katie Bo Lillis, Natasha Bertrand and Kylie Atwood first reported Wednesday that Biden is considering dramatically expanding the training the US military provides to Ukrainian forces, including training up to 2,500 soldiers per month in Germany.
The drills would cover more sophisticated battlefield tactics, including coordinating military maneuvers with artillery support.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN on Wednesday that NATO is trying to invest in Soviet-era weapons and ammunition for Ukraine's forces.
And he told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that Washington was also focused on providing air defense systems.
CNN reported Tuesday that the United States was considering sending Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine, in what would be another threshold the White House crosses.
Germany has promised more anti-aircraft tanks.
Several countries are sending generators after Russian missile and drone strikes have knocked out power facilities.
Large fuel reserves will also be needed.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Wednesday that he sensed a new urgency from Western donors, but that they needed to supply everything his country needed just as quickly.
"These decisions have been made after some kind of tragedy occurred on the front line, which left no choice but to make this decision."
Investigate explosion at the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid 2:46
In recent days, voicing their determination ahead of Macron's visit, US officials have used graphic language to describe the depravity of Putin's tactics, which date back to World War II bombing raids on civilians and are creating the worst human suffering in a European conflict since the 1990s in Bosnia.
"Heating, water, electricity, for children, for the elderly, for the sick - these are President Putin's new targets. He is hitting them hard," Blinken told a news conference at the foreign ministers' meeting. of NATO in Bucharest.
"This brutalization of the Ukrainian people is barbaric."
John Kirby, the National Security Council's strategic communications coordinator, said Putin's record meant there was no surprise about the new twist in his war.
"This is a guy who has used food as a weapon. He has used fear as a weapon. Now ... he is using the coming cold here to basically try to bring the Ukrainian people to their knees," Kirby said Monday. .
"When you take a look at what it's attacking, it's almost all of the civilian infrastructure... It's power, it's water, it's the kind of resources that people need as they prepare for what will undoubtedly be a cold winter."
A test of determination in the West
The suffering of the Ukrainian people in the coming months and the ever-increasing sums needed to support them—Biden has just asked Congress for another $37 billion—will likely heighten the political debate in the United States and allied nations about whether the time has come. time to find a way out of the war.
At least that's what Putin is clearly betting on, and it's why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his wife Olena Zelenska, who addressed British lawmakers on Tuesday, are waging a constant public relations offensive.
Ukrainian explains how he killed Russian soldiers in Kherson 3:30
However, reflecting a more difficult political climate for Ukraine in Washington, the likely next House Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy warned again, after meeting with Biden on Tuesday, that there would be no "blank check" for Ukraine. .
The California Republican is under strong pressure from pro-Trump legislators, who will have significant influence on their small majority in the House of Representatives, to divert funds destined for Ukraine to increase security on the southern border of USA.
At campaign rallies for the mid-term elections, the former president also complained about US generosity towards a country he dragged into his first impeachment.
And one of his main supporters, Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has called on the United States to force Ukraine to negotiate peace with Putin.
But Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, warned Wednesday that Putin was gambling on precisely such a weakening of Western resolve.
"If we don't stand, that would not be in the interest of the United States or the world," he said.
Speculation about the possible end of the war is not only due to the feeling that next year it will be more difficult for Biden to maintain the current level of US funding.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, caused quite a stir when he appeared to argue earlier this month that Russia and Ukraine would have to concede that victory was impossible by closing off the front for the winter.
"When there is an opportunity to negotiate, when peace can be reached, take advantage of it," Milley said.
CNN visited a center that provides basic supplies to Ukrainians 2:37
A week after those comments, which echoed from the United States across the Atlantic, Milley suggested that there was the possibility of a political solution — involving a Russian withdrawal — because Ukraine was in a position of strength.
However, a full withdrawal seems to still be the kind of humiliation that Putin may not be able to bear politically, so the incentive for him to press on — no matter how many Russians and Ukrainians are killed — remains alive.
Washington has consistently said that there can be no negotiations over the heads of the Ukrainians, and given its successes on the battlefield, including the recent expulsion of Russian forces from the southern city of Kherson, Kyiv's willingness to talk, while Western-supplied military materiel flows across the border,
Kirby suggested Monday that the way to end the war would be with a Ukrainian victory.
He promised that Washington would "give Ukraine the tools and capabilities that she needs to succeed on the battlefield so that this war can end ... in a way that Ukraine can be complete and sovereign and free."
While the new House of Representatives may be shaky when it comes to Ukraine next year, the Biden administration still appears to have strong support on the issue among Senate Republicans.
Risch said that while he would do some things differently, "they are deeply invested, they are working closely with our allies and they have contingency plans for things that can go wrong."
Comments from Biden and Macron will be scrutinized in Russia
This new phase of the Ukrainian war means that Biden's and Macron's comments at the White House will be closely watched around the world.
There is a great incentive for both of you to give a strong impression of unity.
The French president has become the most important European point of contact in Washington.
He is the key leader in the European Union, especially after the withdrawal of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the political paroxysms and departure from the EU that have made Britain a less prominent global player.
A team of doctors had to use flashlights to continue an operation in Ukraine 1:10
But France and the United States have not always been on the same page.
Although Paris is a close ally of Washington, it has long pursued an independent foreign policy that can sometimes irritate US officials.
Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and even during the war, Macron has been in contact with Putin.
He has warned that the Russian leader should not be humiliated as he would be less likely to talk about peace.
Some former high-ranking Western officials such as former NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen have claimed that Macron's efforts at diplomacy have only weakened Western unity in the conflict.
But in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly in September, the French president vowed to continue speaking with Putin, warning that the longer the conflict drags on, the more it threatens European and world peace.
But he also seemed to harden her tone toward Russia, accusing her of wanting to return the world to an age of imperialism.
"The negotiations will only be possible if, sovereignly, Ukraine wants it and Russia accepts it in good faith. We all also know that the negotiations will only be successful if Ukraine's sovereignty is respected, its territory is liberated and its security is protected," he said. Macron.
With not even the French president's terms for the talks in sight, there is little prospect of peace talks any time soon.
This means that the winter of hellish suffering for Ukrainian citizens will continue.
And the need for help from the United States and its allies will become more acute, even as there is a political debate about how much more the American people can afford.
