Ukraine faces a tough situation amid war with Russia due to the lack of sufficient weapons that allow them to face the enemy side.
Its president, Volodimir Zelensky, demands “more heavy weapons” from his allies at a time when the Russians are concentrating their forces in the Donbas region, specifically in the city of Severodonetsk, a key town in this region in the east of the country.
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As warned this Wednesday by Mijailo Podolyak, adviser to the Ukrainian Presidency, the ratio of Russian to Ukrainian artillery is 10 to 1 in certain areas.
In a message on Twitter, collected by the Ukrainian agency Ukrinform, Podolyak points out that “the ratio between Russian and Ukrainian artillery in certain areas is 10 to 1” and recalls that “the front line is more than 1,000 km”.
“Every day I get messages from advocates: ‘We’re holding on, we’re up, just tell us when to expect the guns.’ I address this question to the participants of ‘Ramstein’. Brussels, we await a decision,” she added.
This Wednesday the Ukraine Defense Contact Group is in Brussels, a format promoted by the United States and whose first meeting was held on April 26 at the American Ramstein airbase, in Germany, in which the defense ministers of some forty countries to talk about how to increase aid to Ukraine.
The second meeting, known as “Ramstein-2” took place in a virtual format on May 23 and, according to Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, turned into a whole coalition of states in support of Ukraine.
The group will have to determine this Wednesday how to support the Ukrainian country and if and when it sends more weapons to face attacks on the ground.
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In this sense, Ukraine awaits a decision this Wednesday on an increase in the delivery of weapons by its Western allies, said the adviser to the Ukrainian presidency.
The meeting will bring together the defense ministers of the NATO countries and also those of allied countries such as Sweden and Finland. In total, “about 50 countries” will be present, according to the US ambassador to NATO. The Ukrainian Minister of Defense, Oleksiï Reznikov, will also participate in the meeting.
Ukraine is really in a very critical situation
NATO is not organizing deliveries of aid or weapons to Ukraine to defend against Russian invasion, but individual allies have already provided it with billions of dollars worth of military equipment, as well as economic and humanitarian aid.
In addition, during the summit on June 29 and 30 in Madrid to be held by NATO, allied leaders plan to agree on a comprehensive assistance package for Ukraine that will help it in the long term to transition from Soviet-era military equipment to more modern ones such as those used by the Alliance countries, which would also allow it to improve interoperability with them.
In that sense, the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Jens Stoltenberg, said on Wednesday that there was an “urgent need” to increase deliveries of modern weapons to Ukraine, but warned that time is needed to train to force Ukrainians in this new weaponry.
“Ukraine is really in a very critical situation, and therefore there is an urgent need to step up” the delivery of weapons, Stoltenberg said.
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Russia announces the destruction of weapons
Meanwhile, the Russian army said Wednesday that it destroyed a depot of
weapons supplied by NATO countries in western Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that “high-precision Kalibr cruise missiles destroyed near the town of Zolochiv, in the Lviv region, a depot of foreign weapons supplied to Ukraine by NATO countries, specifically M777 howitzers from 155mm”.
Maxim Kozytski, governor of the Lviv region (west), where Zolochiv is located, said in a Telegram message that the Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense had shot down a Russian missile over the city on Tuesday and that six people were slightly injured in its fall.
Unlike the east and south of Ukraine, which have been plagued by Russian-Ukrainian fighting for three and a half months, the west has only been the target of sporadic attacks by Russian troops, targeting military installations receiving Western weaponry. .
In recent weeks, the United States has delivered to Ukraine several batteries of M777 howitzers, state-of-the-art artillery pieces used until recently by the US military in Afghanistan.
However, President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Westerners to send “faster … more weapons and military equipment” because, he said, “the Russians have 10, 100 times more.”
“We have only received 10%” of the weapons that Ukraine “needs”, and without which “we will not be able to win this war”, lamented Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Anna Maliar.
*With information from EFE and AFP
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