“I don't want to spoil the party”, but Ukraine urgently needs “Patriot missiles” to defend itself from the “unprecedented” attacks launched by Russia with ballistic missiles and swarms of Iranian Shahed drones. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, as usual, got straight to the point yesterday in Brussels to meet his NATO colleagues, just as they celebrated, with great pomp, the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Washington Treaty, transported for the occasion physically from the US capital, where it was signed on 4 April 1949, to Evere, the neighborhood on the north-eastern outskirts of the Belgian capital which hosts the mammoth headquarters of the Alliance.
“Saving Ukrainian lives, the Ukrainian economy and Ukrainian cities – insisted Kuleba – depends on the availability of Patriot and other air defense systems. We are talking about Patriots – he underlined – because they are the only system that can intercept ballistic missiles. In March alone, Ukraine was hit by 94 ballistic missiles. But providing the Patriots depends on the Allies: and they have many of them.”
Kuleba took things further: “It is impossible – he said in front of reporters, while the band in the large hall played a military march to celebrate NATO's 75th birthday – to understand why the Allies do not find additional batteries” of missiles “to send into Ukraine, where ballistic missiles are fired every day. There is no other place in the world where something like this happens.”
NATO prepares 100 billion fund
Meanwhile, NATO has begun discussing the creation of a 100 billion dollar fund (an amount never explicitly confirmed by Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg), intended to make the Alliance's military assistance to Ukraine structured and therefore more predictable. .
The details are all to be defined, as Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani explained: Italy, he said, does not have Patriot missiles (it has, however, supplied the Samp-T in the past, another surface-to-air missile system used to air defense), but on Rome's part “there is total support for Ukraine: we have sent the eighth package and we will continue to work to see how to respond to Stoltenberg's proposal” to create a “100 billion” dollar fund . Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made no secret that the situation on the ground in Ukraine is “difficult”, also because Moscow is willing to “sacrifice men and means” to obtain “marginal advances”. The secretary general stressed that allies must “mobilize more aid” urgently, because Ukraine mainly lacks ammunition and air defense.
Stoltenberg: “We will send more air defense systems”
Ukrainian units on the front, a NATO source confirmed, have long had to make “difficult choices”, rationing ammunition to avoid running out. It is certainly not the ideal way “to conduct a war of attrition”. Stoltenberg assured that NATO allied countries will now “look at the stocks” available, to try to send more “air defense systems, in particular Patriot missiles” to Ukraine. The secretary general underlined the “efforts” made by some countries to continue to support Kiev: “I am pleased – he said – that the allies continue to increase” military support, “with new announcements in recent days, including 600 million euros from Germany for the Czech-led initiative” to buy artillery ammunition, “as well as 10 thousand drones from the United Kingdom, more missiles and armored vehicles from France and, just yesterday, a new aid package from Finland worth 188 million. But we need to do even more.”
In general, the senior official explained, Russia maintains “a quantitative advantage” in terms of personnel and equipment on the front line. It is able to recruit around “30 thousand men per month”, which ensures the supply of troops to fight, but “for now” it lacks the “necessary ammunition” to conduct “large offensives”. According to the source, it is “unlikely” that the Russians will be able to carry out major offensive operations “without a large mobilization”, which Vladimir Putin does not seem willing to carry out for now. The fact is, he stresses, that “the supply of weapons by allies makes a difference for Ukrainians on the battlefield.” And, even if so far the Russians have made “tactical advances”, it is also true that many small “tactical advances”, accumulating, risk producing a “strategic advance”.
The Ukrainians, the source noted, “are building defenses” at the front, which should “hinder the Russians” when they conduct the offensive that everyone expects in the coming months, as Tajani confirmed. The fact is that in recent weeks, air attacks have increased, with missiles and drones, which are used “in order to degrade Ukrainian air defenses, which gives them the opportunity to target production infrastructure”, making life increasingly difficult for civilians. “It is essential – the source remarked – that the allies recognize the shortcomings that the Ukrainians suffer from, to continue to give them the capabilities they need to defend themselves from Russian offensives”.
The Trump unknown
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsakhna took this line: “We must give Kiev ammunition and air defense systems – he said – Ukraine is under attack 24 hours a day. We have many systems that we don't use and we must give them to them. We continue to discuss, but we must produce results”, because we must remember that “Ukraine is fighting for us”. Estonia has a sizeable Russian-speaking minority (27.4% of the population according to the 2021 census; source European Commission) and shares a long land border with Russia. However, the senior NATO official sees no danger in the near future: “We don't believe – he explained – that Putin wants to risk a war against NATO. We do not see an imminent threat on this front. Putin understands the strength of NATO commitments and Article 5, which remains a strong deterrent” against any temptation to 'test' the Alliance's reactivity.
Provided that a possible victory for Donald Trump in the presidential elections in November does not change the cards on the table: Minister Tajani, however, displayed calm, observing that the “election campaign” is one thing, the actions of a US president are another in charge. Finally, in view of the Washington summit next July, the succession issue for Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, whose role has been extended several times, is being defined. Tajani explained that Italy supports Mark Rutte: “We talked about it – he said – we reiterated our position, which is in favor of the Dutch prime minister. There is a large majority in favour. Naturally we will have to wait for the responses of the Turkey, Romania and Hungary”. Budapest and Bucharest “support the candidacy of Romanian president Klaus Johannis, but I hope – he concluded – that an agreement can then be found”.
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