Ukraine will look to mount a new counteroffensive in 2025 after receiving a USD 61bn infusion of US military aid to help it stop Russia from making additional gains this year, Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser said, writes The Financial Times.

Speaking at the FT Weekend Festival in Washington on Saturday, Sullivan said that he still expects “Russian advances in the coming period” on the battlefield, despite the new US funding package approved last month, because “you can’t instantly flip the switch”.

But he said that with the new aid from Washington, Kyiv would have the capacity to “hold the line” and “to ensure Ukraine withstands the Russian assault” over the course of 2024.

And pointing to the scenario for the war next year, Sullivan said Ukraine intended to “to move forward to recapture the territory that the Russians have taken from them”.

His comments about a potential counteroffensive by Ukraine represent the White House’s clearest articulation of how it views the conflict evolving if president Joe Biden wins re-election in November.

Any new offensive in 2025 by Ukraine would be dependent on more funding from Congress, and approval by the White House.

But Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee, has been sceptical of Ukraine aid and has vowed to try to end the conflict quickly and seek a negotiated settlement. Ukrainian officials have expressed hope that the country’s armed forces may be able to turn the tide next year. In an address to Ukrainians to mark the third Orthodox Easter since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the soldiers on Ukraine’s frontline and said Russia had broken “all the [bible] commandments, demanded our home, came to kill us”.