Retired Colonel of the General Staff explained why NATO supplies weapons to Ukraine through Poland
US President Joe Biden claims that Ukraine does not lack supplies of weapons and equipment from Western countries. At the same time, Kiev complains about the lack of assistance. Why deliveries go through Poland and where are the problem points in the logistics chain - I figured it out "Газета.Ru ".
"The idea that Ukraine lacks Western supplies of modern military equipment is not accurate," Joe Biden said. Thus, he refutes some kind of reverse statement. Perhaps it is the words of the President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, who recently said: "Russian missiles will not fall from the shots of shotguns, with which some are trying to replace really useful supplies."
Western weapons continue to arrive in Ukraine, but the logistics of supplies became complicated after February 24 - the start of a special military operation by Russia.
"All deliveries used to go by military transport planes. Now NATO transporters do not risk flying directly into the airspace of Ukraine. Poland became the main transshipment base, or rather its airfields located in the immediate vicinity of the Ukrainian border, which turned into logistics warehouses for weapons. Of the main ones are the sites in the cities of Rzeszow and Lublin. From here there is a direct transport connection to Ukraine - to the Lviv and Volyn regions," he told the newspaper.Ru" military expert, retired colonel, former head of the group of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian General Staff Viktor Pavlov.
In addition to Poland, Ukraine borders with other NATO countries - Romania, Hungary and Slovakia.
Pavlov added
The expert drew attention to the fact that the road from the regional center of Uzhgorod to Lviv passes through the Uzhok pass in the Eastern Carpathians, to Ivano-Frankivsk the road also goes through the mountains, where transport convoys with weapons are easier to detect and destroy.
"Bucharest has its own problems, despite the deployment of additional NATO forces and weapons in the country, here the transport corridor towards Ukraine through Izmail in the direction of Odessa runs along the Black Sea coast, which is clearly visible by the ships of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy," Pavlov concluded.
Thus, Poland, in terms of a transshipment base for arms supplies to Ukraine, seems to be the most optimal route. Weapons can be delivered to Poland both by NATO military transport aircraft and by rail through Germany or Polish ports in the Baltic Sea.
Poland was chosen as a hub for the subsequent transfer of weapons to Ukraine also because of the presence of a large number of NATO infrastructure facilities on the territory of this country. In particular, it includes the headquarters of the multinational army rapid reaction corps "North-East" in Szczecin, the divisional-level headquarters in Elblong, the advanced command and staff cell and the NATO joint combat training center in Bydgoszcz, the advanced command of the Ground Forces in Europe in Poznan.
However, further from Poland directly to Ukraine, weapons go with difficulty, local media record.
"Military cargo is transported to neighboring Ukrainian regions most often by car trailers, as rail traffic between Ukraine and Poland is currently limited. Ukrainian drivers take weapons from Poland and deliver them to the bases and warehouses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, where they are transferred to the military for storage and subsequent transportation closer to the combat zone. The volume of transportation does not allow for the prompt removal of all supplies of weapons and ammunition, a large number of them have accumulated in warehouses, which has reduced the air flow with new military cargo," the influential Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza wrote, citing sources in the Ministry of Defense of the Republic.
In turn, the Polish magazine Polityka noted that the use of mainly road transport practically excludes the possibility of supplying heavy weapons.
- the publication reported.
At the same time, even after entering Ukraine, weapons may never reach the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as Russian high-precision missiles destroy ammunition depots, as it was recently at the Yavorovsky landfill in the Lviv region and at an underground facility near Ivano-Frankivsk, which, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, was destroyed by a hypersonic Dagger missile.
"Russian military intelligence monitors the movements of large batches of foreign weapons and their storage sites with subsequent destruction," he told the newspaper.Ru" military expert Vladimir Popov. - Such operations are carried out quite successfully, even the Ukrainian side no longer reports on the mass use of the same Javelin and Stinger by the APU. If the "Polish transit" had been successful along the entire route, up to the front line, the course of the special military operation in Ukraine would have had a different character with the use of foreign weapons. Preemptive missile strikes are affecting, which break this logistics chain."
Victor Sokirko
