The good humor with which NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg tried to hide the vague prospects of Ukraine joining the alliance instantly evaporated when one of the journalists asked about the guarantees security that Kiev is asking for at the next summit in Vilnius. The Washington Post writes that the White House is awaiting the results of the widely heralded Ukraine offensive before the start of Biden’s election campaign. Although US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin publicly states that no one is pushing Ukraine anywhere.
“Ukraine’s struggle is a marathon, not a sprint. Do not run short distances. Therefore, we will continue our short and long term support to Ukraine. There should be no misconceptions about it,” says Lloyd Austin.
What will happen if Biden himself drops out of the race, according to polls. Among Republican Party supporters, the share who think the White House is spending too much on Ukraine has nearly quintupled since March of last year, to 44%.
“In fact, it is tactically better for Zelenskyy to buy time now in order to get more ammunition, more tanks, to wait for the F-16s to be delivered. But they will be delivered in 2-3 months at the earliest And in the West, they really want something to start now, because they have to report to their constituents, and how – they have inflated Ukraine for several months, as they think, with quite large forces and means, and these forces and means are now inactive. Or they spend it on actions taking place in the area of a special military operation, ”explains military observer Dmitry Kornev.
At the same time, the American newspaper Politico publishes a completely politically incorrect cover, accusing the Europeans, who build their defense potential too slowly, of strategic impotence. But instead of Western-made tanks, there is the famous Soviet T-34.
Images of destroyed German Leopard tanks made the rounds in the media around the world last week. Replacing all decommissioned equipment with new one will not work, German Defense Minister Boris Pitorius admitted this week. Instead, Leopard will be repaired and returned once a month. But the priority is your own safety.
“We have to replenish our own reserves. In addition, it is necessary to maintain the existing equipment. We need a defensive Bundeswehr – we still don’t know what might happen on the eastern flank,” says Pitorius.
The West simply does not have enough weapons and ammunition to seriously support Ukraine, says military expert Oleksandr Khramchikhin.
“And, as a result, they don’t really understand how to get out of this situation. Therefore, they try to look for this way out, but it is not visible. Especially given all these endless statements that we will support as much as necessary until Ukraine wins,” Khramchikhin says.
Military aid to Kyiv has already cost Washington $40 billion. Nearly 2,000 Stinger anti-aircraft systems, 10,000 Javelin anti-tank systems, a Patriot battery, dozens of Abrams tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles have been transferred to Ukraine.
At the same time, the report of the Pentagon inspectors indicates that careless accounting increases the risk of weapons and equipment disappearing on the way to Ukraine, although specific cases, as they say, have not not yet registered.
But in Ukraine, they reported that one out of 8 batches of night vision devices, body armor plates and thermal imagers did not reach the recipient in the last six months.
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