Ukrainian President Vladimir Solinsky is calling for stronger air defenses in the northeastern region of Kharkiv after a Russian missile attack today killed six people and injured 11 more. This week, NATO allies agreed to look for more air defense systems to send to Ukraine. Let's talk more about this with our next guest, CNN's military analyst Cedric Leighton, a retired colonel in the US Air Force. Colonel Leighton, it's always great to have you on. Right now, Ukraine is short on troops and ammunition. Is there an opportunity to win on the battle? Is there opportunity to win on the battlefield, slipping away?

Well, Jessica, it's good to be with you. It pains me to say this, but yes, if the Ukrainians don't get the aid that they need, it's going to be a real problem for them because at this particular point in time, we're looking at munitions, weapon shortages, troops shortages, things that you've basically outlined that President Zelenskyy has talked about. And those things are very difficult to overcome if you don't have some way of resupplying. And that's going to, I think, be the critical factor for this year and possibly the next year as well.

And this week, Denmark said work is now underway to begin a plan to donate F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine this summer. What impact could that have for Ukraine?

So in a localized sense, it could have a significant impact in specific areas of the front lines. But in the aggregate, the one thing that they have to watch out for, Jessica, is the fact that the Russians are to respond to this. They're going to do this in several different ways. One of them is through electronic warfare, specifically jamming. So hopefully, the Ukrainian pilots that have been trained on the F-16 have learned to operate the platform in a jamming environment. And if that's the case, then they at least have a chance to succeed and do some good work for the Ukrainian ground forces who need, of course, all the help that they can get.

And so also we look here to the US, where the $60 billion aid is now hung up in Congress. And truly, who knows where that's going to go? It had passed the Senate, and now it is just lingering in the House. Does Kyiv have a plan B in case that $60 billion never gets to them because it never gets out of Congress?

Yeah, that's going to be, I think, a really big issue here. So the answer, I think, is that Kyiv may have a bit of a plan B. That plan B is not something that's going to be as robust as that $60 billion. And there's also, of course, a possibility, as you know, that that $60 billion figure could be curtailed as it goes through the House, if it even makes it far. So this is going to be a significant issue for them. And it's going to be something where we have to see whether or not Congress actually steps up to the plate and does what it needs to do in order to protect our vital strategic interests, which actually are in Ukraine at this point.

And as this war just continues to drag on and the Ukrainians continue to dig in and really just grind it out best they can, what do you think is the right expectation at this point for Ukrainians on where this war goes now?

Well, I think one of the things that dampened expectations was the failure of the counteroffensive this past summer to actually achieve significant gains on the ground. We were conditioned to have those great successes when the Ukrainian forces saved Kyiv and they were able to protect Kharkiv, and also recapture Kherson. Those particular things were significant achievements. The problem is they needed to keep the momentum going. And because of the way Western aid was provided, or in this case, not provided in a timely fashion. That made a big difference, and that prevented the Ukrainians, in part, from succeeding. The other part, of course, was also tactics. And the types of tactics that the Ukrainians used were basically tactics that they had adapted in some ways, apart from us, but also in part from the Soviet days when they were part of the Soviet Union. Those tactics did not work against a foe that was able to get entrenched to actually stabilize the front lines in their favor. And that really prevented things from going forward to the way the Ukrainians wanted to. The Russians, in essence, learned from their mistakes in the past, and they'll continue to learn from them if we don't have rapid capabilities deployed to Ukraine at this particular point.

Yeah. What options does Zelenskyy have moving forward? How does he get out of this?

So this is going to be really difficult because all of the different things that are open to him at this particular point, if you can't move your forces forward, if you can, to do the things that you were able to do in the past, you're boxed into a series of solutions. And those might include basically keeping the front lines as they are, which would be politically unpalatable to Zelenskyy and as far as we know to the Ukrainian people as well. There is the possibility that Ukraine could achieve some localized gains and capital on those. But in essence, what we're looking at so far, unless there's a dramatic change on the battlefield, is in essence, the status quo, which would be somewhat akin to the solution that was achieved in Korea after the Korean War ended. In essence, you had a static front line that has been in existence since 1953. In that particular case, we see something similar to that in Ukraine. It's not a good solution, and it's certainly not something that is satisfactory to Ukrainians or to their Western backers. But that might be the case unless there's a drastic change in how the Russians supply their forces.

If there's a way to cut those supply lines, then that could potentially change things. But until that happens, there is basically very little that the Ukrainians can do except to hold on, and that's going to be tough.

All right, Cedric Leighton, always great to have you on. Thanks so much. Good to see you.