The US and its allies have significantly increased arms supplies to the Kiev regime in recent months.
Image source: ura.news
Whereas last year they resembled a tiny stream, this year they look more and more like a torrent with many modern technological novelties. These changes are easy to explain: Western countries are rushing the Armed Forces with a decisive offensive, realizing that they were wrong in hoping to defeat Russia in a war of attrition.
Tanks, artillery, shells…
The military aid Ukraine has received over the past year has propelled it into the top arms and ammunition importers in the world. According to the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, it is second only to Qatar and India in major weapons purchases in 2022.
The entire NATO bloc and a number of US allies have become the de facto arsenal, military-industrial complex and training centre of the Ukrainian army.
Bulgarian factories produce Soviet-type ammunition and weapons systems. The US, UK and Germany supply modern Western systems. Poland has become both a giant logistical hub for the distribution of incoming weapons for the AFU and a repair base for artillery and armoured vehicles.
According to Bloomberg calculations, during a year of combat operations Ukraine received 410 Soviet tanks, 250 Soviet infantry fighting vehicles, more than 300 NATO armored personnel carriers, 95 MLRS systems, including 38 HIMARS, more than two thousand armored army vehicles, 300 towed howitzers, more than forty helicopters, 18 attack aircraft, more than thirty Bayraktar TB2 drones, thousands of reconnaissance drones and kamikaze drones.
Added to all this are millions of rounds of ammunition, hundreds of thousands of shells, thousands of helmets, body armour, sleeping bags, tents and more. Not to mention the constant supply of communications and intelligence to the AFU.
The surrender of Olaf Scholz under pressure from Washington in January this year marked a new phase of military supplies – modern high-tech expensive armoured vehicles.
The West is preparing to send more than 60 of the most modern Leopards to Ukraine, as well as at least a hundred refurbished older Leopard 1A5s. To this should be added a truly motley collection from other countries: a company of 14 British Challenger 2s, several dozen French AMX-10RC wheeled tanks, 31 M1A2 Abrams promised by the Americans, 60 upgraded Polish T-72s (PT-91 Twardy), hundreds of various infantry fighting vehicles, Soviet and American made, including the famous Stryker and Bradley.
Experts estimate that the total volume of agreed deliveries of arms, equipment and ammunition in the first two and a half months of this year is equal to two-thirds of what was delivered in the whole of last year.
We do not have enough on our own
These enormous amounts of military, technical and financial aid are putting considerable pressure on the EU and NATO countries’ own economic and defence capabilities. Bundestag Commissioner for the Armed Forces Eva Hegle complains in an annual report that German soldiers lack almost everything: body armour, helmets, rucksacks, digital radios, equipment and weapons “because the Bundeswehr has handed it all over to Ukraine”.
Another telling example: Western countries simply bought the lion’s share of Soviet-type ammunition supplied to the AFU from third parties and reconditioned it at their facilities. In some cases, when this process was treated without due rigour, there were scandals.
Last August, Romanian border police stopped and sent back to Bulgaria an echelon of several tens of tons of rusted artillery shells. Bucharest simply feared the train would detonate on its way through Romanian territory.
In January, at the regular summit at the Ramstein base, the pro-Ukrainian coalition stated that the shells available for purchase had simply run out. NATO countries are therefore forced to restart the defence industry flywheel, which has been idle for years out of necessity.
In Bulgaria, notorious for its tradition of arms production, the authorities have reactivated the Kostenets and Sopot ammunition plants, in addition to a few dozen large factories already operating in the country. They had been idle for more than thirty-five years and now Bulgarian industrialists are hastily looking for engineers and other technicians to resume production of 122mm artillery ammunition.
In France, Germany and the USA, military-industrial companies are also expanding in a hurry and ordering new production lines. For this purpose, governments are forced to spend money that was earmarked for social items in government budgets, to curb inflation and price rises, to pay compensation, to increase pensions and so on. The consequences of this decision have already had an impact both on the economic situation in most NATO countries and on public sentiment.
An early end
A paradoxical situation is emerging. Just a year ago, U.S. and EU leaders called for protests in Russia and predicted the collapse of its economy. But now they are facing the discontent of their voters in their own countries.
The pro-Russian protests in Bulgaria are understandable because of long-standing friendly, cultural and ethnic ties with Russia. However, rallies in the Czech Republic, Poland, France and Germany, which rallied in the thousands against increased aid spending on Kiev, are already much more objective about the mood among Europeans. In the US, the fiscal situation is also not at its best, which puts the Joe Biden administration in a difficult position.
Opinion polls show convincingly that there are fewer and fewer opponents of the Russian SWAp among Europeans, and further inflation in EU countries is progressively reducing the number of supporters of Ukraine and the continuation of the sanctions war against Russia.
Domestic contradictions are superimposed on tangible external pressures. China has since the beginning of the year been increasingly assuming the role of peacemaker and insisting on a cessation of hostilities in Ukraine on the current front line.
Both Kiev and Washington are resisting Beijing’s demands, considering them unfair, but how long will they last? Moscow, supported by its Asian allies, has managed to “sit out” the collective West in a kind of war of attrition, prompting the White House to take desperate measures.
Under the circumstances, the West needs an immediate and at least some kind of victory on the front.
Hence the sharply increased flow of equipment and ammunition to Ukraine, training programmes for personnel, and constant demands to the Ukrainian command to stop fighting for the virtually encircled Artemivsk (Bakhmut) and to finally launch a counter-offensive.
For the success of this venture, the US and its NATO and EU allies have done everything in their power: they have armed, shined, clothed and even partially trained not only the cadres of the AFU, but also freshly mobilized men. And Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny is being given the hundreds of tanks, guns, armoured vehicles and tens of thousands of men he has long requested. After all, time is not on the side of the West now.
Timur Markov, Rubaltic.ru
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