Ukraine will receive in time the military aid it needs to fight in the spring, the defense ministers of the international support group for the country, made up of 54 countries, assured yesterday.
“We don’t have any aircraft announcements to make today” but “we will continue to work with Ukraine to respond to their most urgent needs. They are preparing an offensive for the spring and there are only a few weeks left,” said the US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, at the end of the meeting of ministers of the Ramstein group, known by the name of the German city. where it was established “The urgent thing now is to deliver what has already been promised,” he insisted, and to make sure it is ready to be used in an integrated and coordinated way. Crew training has begun but will take several weeks. “It is a daunting task ahead of us,” Austin stressed.
At yesterday’s meeting, 11 countries, including Spain, promised to send tanks, 22 to deliver infantry fighting vehicles, 16 offered artillery and ammunition and another nine air defense artillery.
France and Italy are working to send a Mamba-type long-range air defense system to Ukraine, while the United States, Germany and the Netherlands are preparing Patriot air defense systems.
The war fronts have been largely static over the winter, but Russian forces have increased pressure to the east while tightening their defenses to the south, and there is a risk that Ukrainian forces will not be able to withstand the growing numbers of troops displaced by Moscow. “Their progress is slow, it is a war of attrition and they are taking a high number of casualties,” and although their morale is not high and they are neither well trained nor well equipped, Moscow “has the numbers” enough to continue, the chief said. of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley. But “it remains to be seen if they prevail,” he added. “Russia has lost strategically and operationally” and “has become a pariah [country],” he said, glossing over the “courage and resilience” of the Ukrainians.
Always one step ahead, the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, Olexí Réznikov, thanked the contributions, but arrived with his sights set on one objective: “aircraft”, he told the press, taking off a handkerchief from his lapel illustrated with the profile of several combat fighters. It is not on the agenda at the moment and it is a decision that will take time to make and execute, but the subject is already being discussed. “The planes are not urgent, but there are talks going on,” admitted Jens Stoltenberg, the Alliance’s secretary general.
The priority, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius pointed out, “is anti-aircraft defense and the issue of ammunition supply, rather than combat aircraft.” In this sense, the German government has just signed an agreement with a manufacturer to speed up the production of the type of ammunition used by Gepard anti-aircraft defense tanks. To date, the 54 countries supporting Ukraine have committed nearly $50 billion worth of lethal material since the start of the invasion, according to American estimates.
