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Ukrainians on the frontlines anticipate that the forthcoming battles against Russia will require advanced weapons — tools Kyiv continues to ask the U.S. and Western allies to ship so it can press forward in the country’s east.

MICHAEL CARPENTER, U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe, said the Biden administration is looking to provide “sustainable” assistance to Ukraine, even if sometimes it’s not always the amount Kyiv hopes for.

“The Pentagon has been advising the Ukrainians on what they think is the most sustainable type of support that we can provide. And it has to do with the numbers of the equipment and artillery, munitions that we have available and the pace at which we can continue to expand those sorts of munitions and hope for replacements,” Carpenter said. “You have to factor in costs. The enemy certainly factors in costs.”

To date, the U.S. and Europe have balked at sending long-range missiles to Ukraine. Biden administration officials, in particular, are fearful of provoking Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN further. And some European countries are increasingly concerned about the economic costs of sending more high-value weapons to Ukraine as well as increasing commitments to fleeing Ukrainians.

Carpenter repeated President JOE BIDEN’s refrain that the U.S. will back Ukraine “for as long as it takes” alongside its European partners — despite some of the hardships.

“We understand that for some countries, this means that heating costs are going to be higher this winter. But Ukrainian men, women and children are being tortured and being killed,” Carpenter said. “The sacrifices that they're making are orders of magnitude larger than the ones that we are making in our countries. We are trying to share the burden amongst ourselves so that it's equally distributed.”

Despite the winter weather conditions in Ukraine, the country’s armed forces are still engaged in intense battles with Russia, particularly in the city of Bakhmut. The fighting is likely to drag on through the winter.

In recent interviews with POLITICO, Ukrainian politicians and advisers said they want to continue pressing forward on the frontline to liberate additional territory. The Ukrainians will participate in conversations about peace talks only if Russia shows signs of engaging seriously in the negotiation process. Ukrainian Foreign Minister DMYTRO KULEBA suggested that Kyiv is open to U.N.-brokered discussions but only if Russia faces a war crimes tribunal.

Carpenter said the U.S. is working with the Ukrainians, the U.N., the Europeans and human rights organizations to investigate Russian war crimes. However, the process for prosecuting potential crimes could take years.

“The scale and scope of what we're seeing is just so enormous that it's going to require multiple different mechanisms and jurisdictions to get involved in order to ensure that there is some accountability for these horrific war crimes and what are quite likely crimes against humanity,” Carpenter said. “There's going to be painstaking gathering of evidence and then preservation of that evidence and the building of the cases. And then there is the actual bringing of the cases and the prosecutions. It's going to be a long, hard slog.”

UKRAINE KILLS 63 RUSSIANS IN HIMARS ATTACK: Sixty-three Russian soldiers were killed by a Ukrainian missile strike, Russia’s defense ministry said Monday, the Associated Press reports.

Ukrainian troops fired six munitions from a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System at a facility in the eastern Donetsk region where the soldiers were stationed, Russian officials said. Two of the rockets from the strike — which used U.S.-supplied precision weapons — were shot down. Ukrainian officials did not take credit for the attack, but claimed on Sunday that around 400 Russian soldiers were killed in an attack on a school building in Makiivka.

On Monday night, Russian forces continued their persistent attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, deploying 40 drones to Kyiv, the city’s mayor VITALI KLITSCHKO said. All of them were shot down, underscoring Ukraine’s seemingly enhanced capability. What’s more, Washington will soon be sending a Patriot air defense battery, which will bring an even more robust defense.

“Only two days have passed since the beginning of the year, and the number of Iranian drones shot down over Ukraine is already more than 80,” Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY said Monday, following a string of air attacks in the past week.

U.S. ARMY PREPARES IN ROMANIA: An Army division’s rare presence miles from the Ukrainian border in Romania shows the U.S. aiming to support allies without becoming directly involved in Russia’s war, The New York Times’ LARA JAKES reports.

It’s the first time since World War II that the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division has been deployed to Europe, and in this case, just a seven-minute rocket launch from Russia’s stockpile in Crimea.

In Romania’s northern regions, the soldiers participated in a drill where they fired artillery, launched helicopter assaults and dug trenches resembling those on the front lines near Kherson. Their presence illustrates a shift in the American military’s approach in foreign conflicts, opting out of active fighting and instead using shows of force and weapons shipments to drive the point home.

The division’s presence in the area “means U.S. forces are there mainly to reassure Romania that we’re serious about defending it. It’s unlikely the U.S. troops alone can threaten Russian positions in Crimea, although it probably gives the Russians a little extra to worry about,” CHRISTOPHER CHIVVIS, senior fellow and director of the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment, told NatSec Daily.

RECESSION LOOMING FOR SOME: International Monetary Fund chief KRISTALINA GEORGIEVA believes that a third of the global economy could enter a recession due to economic slowdowns in the U.S., European Union and China, CNN’s DIKSHA MADHOK reports.

Europe will likely continue reeling from the effects of Russia's war with Ukraine and China will struggle with lingering effects of Beijing's zero-Covid policy, which hampered global investment into the country. America's relatively secure economic position has drawn criticism from some countries in Europe that believe Washington should offer more energy assistance as Russia has restricted natural gas exports in response to Western sanctions.

MAX BERGMANN, with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he believes Europe will find ways to support Ukraine but acknowledges that an economic downturn could diminish some of the goals NATO members have for increasing defense spending.

"There's talk of the U.S. trying to ask Europeans to spend more than 2 percent, to start hitting maybe two and a half percent or 3 percent and create a new goal for defense spending," Bergmann told NatSec Daily. "I mean, that's just going to fall on totally deaf ears in the midst of a grinding economic recession. It's just not going to happen."

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ISRAELI MINISTER VISITS HOLY SITE: A hardline Israeli minister visited a site in Jerusalem that’s holy for both Jews and Muslims Tuesday in one of his first acts, a move that could spike tensions with Hamas and Palestinians.

The visit by ITAMAR BEN-GVIR, Israel’s minister of national security, marked the highest-ranking ministerial visit to the site — known as the Temple Mount by Jews and the Noble Sanctuary by Muslims — in years. It took place without any violence or serious demonstration, though some fear a reaction is coming.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called the move “an unprecedented provocation,” and Hamas, which controls Gaza, said it was a “flagrant assault.”

Ben-Gvir visited the volatile area against the advice of Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU and has displayed no signs of ceding ground.

“The Temple Mount is open to everyone and if Hamas thinks that if it threatens me, it will deter me, let them understand that times have changed,” he tweeted along with a photo of him accompanied by security officials. His comment and action reveals the difficulties Netanyahu will face in leading his far-right governing coalition.

BOARDS WANT CYBER BOOST: The war in Ukraine has prompted company boards to beef up their firms’ cybersecurity needs, dovetailing with a mandate this year by the Securities and Exchange Commission that companies disclose details about cybersecurity oversight and attacks.

“Businesses have received repeated warnings from U.S. government agencies about risks to companies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly one year ago. There haven’t been any destructive cyberattacks on American companies disclosed in connection to the war, but many CISOs remain wary,” the Wall Street Journal’s CATHERINE STUPP and KIM NASH report.

“There’s a mindshift change going on that nobody would be safe from a nation-state attack,” MARC HOFMANN, chief security officer at Finnish bank Nordea Bank Abp, told WSJ.

Strupp and Nash also note: “Some boards now rate cyber threats on a par with trade wars and supply-chain problems among risks that could have major impact on companies, said MICHAEL HILB, a professor of corporate governance at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.”

CONSOLIDATION RUN AMOK?: Pentagon officials are wondering if defense industry consolidation has gone too far as they note the difficulties of replenishing weapons the U.S. sent to Ukraine.

“Two decades of mergers and acquisitions have left the top six contractors to share the majority of Pentagon spending on military equipment. In the 1990s, some 50 firms vied for big contracts,” the Wall Street Journal’s DOUG CAMERON reports. “The broader defense industrial base shrank to 55,000 vendors in 2021 from 69,000 in 2016, and those smaller companies have become a choke point as shortages of labor, chips, rocket motors and other components are hobbling efforts to boost arms production.”

The Pentagon “is increasingly reliant on a smaller number of contractors for these critical capabilities,” HALIMAH NAJIEB-LOCKE, deputy assistant secretary of defense in charge of industrial base issues, said at a recent George Mason University event. “That impacts everybody’s ability to ramp production.”

The problems in making artillery and missiles for America’s use have brought the consultation problem back into the spotlight.

'IT'S A PROBLEM': The first day of divided government on Capitol Hill looks to be a long one as House Republicans remain at odds over who will be the next speaker. Rep. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-Calif.) came up short of the majority needed to take the gavel amid conservative resistance, and it's unclear exactly how long the dispute will drag out.

If the leadership impasse lingers, that means committees may stumble out of the gate, including Pentagon oversight panels. Key details — such as formally signing off on committee chairs, naming members to panels and appointing subcommittee chairs — won't be ironed out until after the speaker's race is settled, Connor reports (for Pros!).

"I think it's a problem. The House is not going to be able to function until they get a speaker, and it's going to take a while," Rep. ADAM SMITH of Washington, the top Armed Services Democrat, said. "We're going to be without any committees for potentially weeks."

Incoming Armed Services Chair MIKE ROGERS (R-Ala.) conceded the point, though he downplayed the effect on the committee, which typically doesn't ratchet up its work until the administration's defense budget arrives.

"Every day is a day that we can't be working on policy," he said. "That's true."

Related: The Center for a New American Security’s JONATHAN LORD explains in a Twitter thread what can’t be done without a speaker in place.

GERMANS FOR PUTIN: Far-right groups in Germany are pushing for the country to relinquish its support for Ukraine, including former Russian officials using aliases, Reuters reports.

Pro-Moscow groups have used Kremlin rhetoric by blaming Ukraine for attacks on civilians and using social media to criticize Berlin’s military and humanitarian aid for Kyiv. Some of the individuals involved have been accused of trying to overthrow the German government and represent a growing danger for Europe's unity against Russia.

Germany, Europe's largest economy, has already been criticized for not providing Ukraine with enough military support, while dealing with domestic concerns about how the war has strangled the country's energy.

— ISAAC KARDON has joined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as a senior fellow for China studies. He was an assistant professor at the U.S. Naval War College.

— EURASIA GROUP: Top Risks for 2023

— RYAN GINGERAS, War On The Rocks: An Honest Broker No Longer: The United States Between Turkey and Greece

— ILYA SOMIN, The Washington Post: Biden has found the key to fixing the broken U.S. refugee system

— East-West Center, 12 p.m.: Border Politics of Anti-Communism and Anti-Discrimination in Korea

Have a natsec-centric event coming up? Transitioning to a new defense-adjacent or foreign policy-focused gig? Shoot me an email at [email protected] to be featured in the next edition of the newsletter.

Thanks to our editor, Dave Brown, who thinks covering for Heidi while she’s on vacation isn’t “sustainable.”

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