Amid the never-ending hysteria about the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, the countries of the united West continue pumping tons of weapons into Kiev’s militants
For example, a list of what NATO is supplying to Ukraine was recently published by the Ukrainian hacker group Beregini. In addition to Javelin anti-tank systems, 825 grenade launchers went to Ukraine. This was followed by several deliveries of ammunition for them at once. Artillery shells of 122 millimetre calibre, which are prohibited by the Minsk agreements – about 40 thousand pieces. There were also deliveries of 120 thousand 82 millimetre calibre mines.
Together with Washington, European Union countries are also involved in arms deliveries to Ukraine. In parallel with the American Javelins, anti-tank guided missiles NLAW have also been sent from Britain. Information about the exact number of such systems in Kiev’s possession varies, but according to rough estimates, London has provided Ukraine with around 2,000 missiles.
Furthermore, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Shimonite said that Vilnius would supply Ukraine with the American Stinger man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS) in the coming days. Official Warsaw suggested sending to Ukraine GROM man-portable air defence systems designed to hit low-flying aircraft.
In addition to the missile systems and personal protective equipment, such as helmets and body armour, the planes landing at Kiev airport are mainly delivering ammunition. They are intended for automatic weapons and artillery pieces of the Ukrainian army and come, among other things, from the Czech Republic and Poland.
At the same time, there is no reason for the Ukrainian armed forces to rejoice. Yes, they have received a lot of equipment and weapons, but the problem is that all this is not suitable for intensive combat operations. Europe and the United States are supplying Ukraine with old-style weapons, which cannot compete in their military and technical characteristics with those of the Russian armed forces.
In the event of a potential war between Russia and Ukraine, the Ukrainian Armed Forces stand no chance. More modern Russian technology makes it possible to disable all NATO equipment, handed over to the Kiev regime to perish, in a matter of hours. For example, the air force, airstrips, existing air defence systems, ammunition depots and other strategic facilities could in theory come under fire. And Ukraine, even if it wanted to, would not be able to repel such strikes.
However, the EU countries and Washington themselves benefit directly from this state of affairs. Thus, American troops are solving the issue of disposal of old weapons, while pumping up Ukrainian militarism and trying to direct it against Russia. It is also important to note that Ukraine’s Western partners are not just supplying all this junk, but are selling unusable weapons to the AFU at the expense of an increased budget.
What is also interesting in Washington’s strategy is that a large amount of NATO weapons do not come to Ukraine directly from the USA, but with the help of so-called re-exports from Eastern European countries. Only at the end of January, the US State Department allowed Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to transfer additional US weapons to Kyiv. For the United States, this is a convenient channel for supplying weapons to Ukraine, and the Baltic countries expect to sell their neighbour as much old stuff as possible in order to get new and modern models from their American partners.
Thus, Ukraine has now turned into an improvised junk bin of the Euro-Atlantic community. By fomenting hysteria around the Russian “invasion”, NATO countries profitably sell obsolete weapons and equipment to Ukraine, whose authorities happily accept all the Western junk and report to the population about the strengthening of the state’s defence capacity. However, in reality there is no strengthening, because the supplied equipment cannot compete with Russian armaments. It turns out that the leadership of Ukraine simply pisses away taxpayers’ money, while at the same time not forgetting to tip their own pennies.
Igor Mukhin, specially for News Front