The European Union will likely fail to deliver 1 million artillery ammunition to Ukraine by the end of March 2024, as he promised to do in recent months. The Lithuanian Foreign Minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, one of the most determined supporters of Ukraine fighting against the Russian invader, had already predicted this on Monday morning: “The promise has not materialized and unfortunately I don’t think it will materialize”, he admitted. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius also made it clear: “It must be assumed that the million mark will not be reached,” he said.
Yet on 30 June the President of the Commission Ursula von der Leyen assured that “we have already delivered over 220 thousand ammunition and over 2 thousand missiles. We are on track to deliver the million ammunition expected within the next 12 months”, already moving, to Read carefully, the three-month time limit, from the end of March to the end of June.
Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton clarified that it is not a problem of production capacity, which in the EU “is there” to produce one million pieces a year. “I am responsible for the production capacity – she said – now the states must proceed to place the orders and they must be oriented mainly towards Ukraine. I strongly urge them to place the orders”.
The High Representative of the EU Josep Borrell explained that so far around “300 thousand pieces” have been delivered to Kievtaken from the stocks of member countries and from the “reorientation” of orders already placed. The problem is thatgiven that EU defense companies operate on the free market, “approximately 40% of ammunition production is exported to third countries, rather than ending up in Ukrainewhich consumes it in unprecedented quantities to defend itself from Russia, which has a military production apparatus that responds to very different logics.
For Latvian Defense Minister Andris Spruds, the goal of delivering one million artillery ammunition to Ukraine by the end of March 2024 was clearly “symbolic.” Borrell urged member states to place production orders and “redirect” exports to Ukraine. Meanwhile, while European states try to organize themselves, Ukrainians are fighting and dying: we need to do “more and more quickly”, said Borrell, because in war “time is measured in human lives”.
Meanwhile, the secretary general of NATO Jens Stoltenbergwho from the beginning of the invasion had urged not to underestimate Russia, which is a “formidable military power”, Today he admitted that the “situation on the battlefield” in Ukraine is “difficult”, therefore “it is even more important to increase support for Kiev, because we cannot allow President Vladimir Putin to win.” Ukraine “must prevail as a sovereign nation in Europe, it is in our interest,” she stressed.
In the evening, another piece of news that changes the picture. THESlovakia’s Defense Minister, Robert Kaliniak, informed Stoltenberg that his country would no longer supply arms and ammunition to Ukraine.
During a meeting in Brussels, Kaliniak informed the head of the Atlantic Alliance about the “end of military assistance to Ukraine provided by the depots of the Slovak Armed Forces. Slovakia, however, will continue to provide Ukraine with a wide range of humanitarian aid and technical assistance, the use of which does not cause deaths”, the Ministry of Defense in Bratislava reported in a note.
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