The allies accelerate, aware that it will be a difficult summer for Ukraine and even more so next autumn-winter, with energy production capacity reduced to a bare minimum by the relentless Russian bombing. So it’s raining announcements. The F-16s will arrive soon, as early as this summer. Romania will provide a Patriot system, invaluable for defending the Ukrainian skies. The USA then makes it clear that, in agreement with partners waiting for the advanced anti-missile batteries as per signed contracts, they will give priority to Kiev. Finally the EU.
Despite its timing, the agreement on the 14th package of sanctions arrived, very “incisive” according to those who did the calculations. Inside there are measures against the export of liquefied natural gas from Russia, the ban on transshipment in European ports (4-6 bcm per year), the inclusion of around a hundred names on the EU blacklist among natural and legal persons , measures on dual use technology and yet another crackdown on sanctions evasion thanks to triangulation with third countries and subsidiaries. “It will be a big blow for Moscow,” assures a European diplomatic source.
In short, after months of melina – costing many lives on the battlefield, as highlighted by the head of NATO Jens Stoltenberg – it seems that the West is on its last legs. “This summer everything will align,” said Dutch Air Force Commander Arnoud Stallmann. Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway have committed to supplying Ukraine with around 80 F-16s and the first jets are on their way, probably from Copenhagen (deliveries will be staggered over a period of years for operational reasons, however).
Russia could supply North Korea with “high-precision weapons”, i.e. missiles capable of threatening American forces on the peninsula, in response to the bombing of Russia with launchers made available to Kiev by NATO countries. The warning was launched yesterday by Vladimir Putin from Hanoi, at the conclusion of a mission in East Asia during which on Wednesday in Pyongyang he signed a pact of mutual military assistance with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the event of an attack on one of the two countries. Putin does not rule out a revision of his nuclear doctrine, taking into account that potential adversaries “are working on this” with a possible “lowering of the threshold for the use of atomic weapons”. Although he was keen to point out that there is no mention of the possibility of foreseeing a preventive attack, because with a simple retaliation “the enemy would be destroyed”.
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