The NATO countries in particular have provided Ukraine with weapons and equipment from their stocks. According to information from Kiev this week, military aid so far amounts to around 50 billion dollars (around 45 billion euros). In the meantime, almost all vehicles, battle tanks, armored personnel carriers and anti-aircraft vehicles, artillery and ammunition have arrived in Ukraine, the New York Times said on Thursday. It is unclear to what extent they are operational and how the Ukrainian troops have been trained on them.
In any case, the commander of US forces for Europe and Africa and NATO, General Christopher G. Cavoli, told the newspaper that “over 98 percent” of the promised vehicles are “already there”. He is very confident “that we have provided all the material they need,” Cavoli said before the United States House Committee on Armed Services, a standing committee of the House of Representatives in Washington. He also announced that NATO would continue to provide additional material.
“Ukrainians in a very good starting position”
The weapons deliveries are primarily intended to support the Ukrainian army’s expected offensive, which military experts estimate should begin in a few weeks at the latest – as soon as the ground conditions after the winter allow heavy vehicles to move off-road.
The US’s NATO allies “have been very generous,” Cavoli told the committee, particularly with regard to tanks and armored vehicles. “The Ukrainians are in a very good starting position.”
Fighter jets “only” priority number eight
When asked by the New York Times why the US government under President Joe Biden was reluctant to deliver combat aircraft, the NATO commander said that the Ukrainian troops currently had more urgent needs. According to the newspaper, the US government expects the counteroffensive to begin in May.
The Secretary of State for International Security Affairs at the US Department of Defense, Celeste Ann Wallander, told the New York Times that fighter jets – Ukraine is demanding primarily US-type F-16 “Fighting Falcon” multirole fighter jets – are on the list of priorities for arms deliveries eight ranked. Air defense, artillery and tanks are more important from Washington’s point of view. Everything is also a question of timing. “What do they need now”, what can be provided in a timely manner and be effective?
Again and again speculation about offensive
Even the United States, as its biggest supporter, has only limited information about Ukraine’s strategic plans, the newspaper said on Thursday, but the offensive is “probably” likely to begin in the south of the country near the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Other international media reports speculated this week that the Ukrainian army would first attack in the north-east of the country towards the city of Luhansk. The report also voiced doubts that the offensive would turn the tide significantly in Ukraine’s favour.
Ammunition is in short supply
Although the Ukrainian units now have enough weapons from a NATO perspective, what they obviously don’t have from their own experience is sufficient ammunition, as the BBC reported on Thursday. There is a lack of ammunition, especially for their weapon systems from Soviet or Russian production, which are usually not compatible with Western standards, starting with light infantry weapons.
A year ago, a Ukrainian artillery unit was able to fire 40 shells from a Soviet BM-21 rocket launcher, but now there are only a few. “We don’t have enough ammunition for our weapons,” the British channel quoted a commander of Ukraine’s 17th tank battalion in the Bakhmut region as saying.
Focus Bachmut
Fierce fighting has been raging there for weeks, involving mainly mercenaries from the Russian private army Wagner. According to international media reports, you and Russian units are trying to take the city in the Donetsk district in eastern Ukraine with high losses. The commander, whose first name is Volodymyr, told the BBC that the company’s own stocks are almost used up, and that supplies are now dependent on supplies from the Czech Republic, Romania and Pakistan, although the quality of the ammunition is sometimes poor.
Despite the large supply of weapons from the West, the Ukrainian army still uses a large number of Soviet and Russian-made weapons, such as the 9K37 Buk radar-assisted surface-to-air missile system. According to a commander of the task force, this is “a number one goal” for the Russian army because it is correspondingly dangerous for them. Ukraine needs more of that too, he told the BBC. Spare parts were missing since they could no longer be produced in Ukraine.
NATO sees duty fulfilled
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also confirmed on Thursday that Ukraine has now received 230 tanks and more than 1,550 armored vehicles from its allies. He also agreed with US Gen. Cavoli that these are more than 98 percent of the combat vehicles recently pledged to Ukraine through the International Contact Group for the Coordination of Military Aid.
“This puts Ukraine in a strong position to recapture occupied territory,” Stoltenberg said. More than nine Ukrainian armored brigades have now been trained and equipped. They each consist of several thousand Ukrainian soldiers.
Contrary to many media reports, the clout of the Russian army should never be underestimated, even if they only try to compensate for lack of quality with quantity. “We can see that Russia is mobilizing more personnel.” The fighting for Bakhmut also showed that Russia was willing to accept a high number of dead and injured.
