Unmasking the superpower: Where the Ukraine crisis started Illustration: Xu Zihe/GT

Chinese experts said on Tuesday that the latest round of US support to Ukraine would only frustrate the efforts of other countries to promote peace talks, after a US defense official announced on Monday that the US is providing up to $325 million in additional military aid for Ukraine.

The package is anticipated to include Stryker and Bradley armored vehicles that can replace those damaged and destroyed in the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive, according to two US Defense Department officials, who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity ahead of the package's expected release Tuesday, according to VOA on Monday.

The aid announcement comes amid reports that Ukraine has lost more than a dozen Bradley infantry fighting vehicles in recent days, highlighting the military costs of the current counteroffensive.

However, observers believe that a new round of support from the US will not help ease the conflict and will only weaken and frustrate the efforts of other countries to promote peace talks instead.

According to Izvestia, a daily broadsheet newspaper in Russia, Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said on Sunday that Ukraine and Russia cannot negotiate on the basis of any peace initiative, including the initiative proposed by Brazil, Indonesia and some African countries.

Podolyak wrote on Twitter: "Any negotiations with the current Russian government are impossible. There is no such thing as an Indonesian, Brazilian or African 'basis' [for negotiations]."

Ukraine said on Sunday its forces had liberated three villages - Blahodatne, Neskuchne and Makarivka - that lie on the edge of the Donetsk region next to Zaporizhzhia region, after Kiev on Saturday confirmed that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had begun.

The Ukrainian government is pressuring the military force, asking them to make meaningless sacrifices, Cui Heng, an assistant research fellow from the Center for Russian Studies of East China Normal University, told the Global Times on Tuesday. Therefore, the counteroffensive may soon end, and then both sides will enter a state of seesaw standoff, he said. 

Currently, most countries that are still striving to mediate and promote dialogue between Russia and Ukraine have the same primary goal, which is to achieve a cease-fire and freeze the conflict. However, even so, conditions are not yet ripe for cease-fire negotiations as the shadow of the US is imposing an impact behind the conflict, Cui said.

Before the 2024 presidential elections, it is unlikely that any party in the US will propose a plan to stop the conflict. Because if any side proposes to support the cessation of the conflict, they will be heavily criticized by their opponents and might lose the election, so no one is willing to take that risk, Cui noted.