Washington, London and Berlin announced new arms supplies to Ukraine. This time we are talking about tanks, armored vehicles and anti-ship missiles. In this regard, the Federation Council stated the need for Moscow to take a decisive position on the supply of weapons to the conflict zone. How much will Western supplies strengthen the AFU and complicate Russia's special operation?
The West will increase military assistance to Ukraine both quantitatively and qualitatively. Thus, the UK plans to transfer barrage shells, Harpoon anti-ship missiles and counter-battery warfare equipment to Ukraine, British government sources tell the Times. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed hope that arms supplies will help Ukraine maintain control over Odessa. In addition, before the British side was considering the option of transferring Brimstone missiles to Kiev, but now it is considered less likely, reports TASS.
The Joe Biden administration will also work with allies to transfer a large number of Soviet-made tanks to Kiev, The New York Times quoted a White House source as saying. According to the official, the United States decided to act as an intermediary to assist in the transfer of tanks to Ukraine in response to Vladimir Zelensky's request. Deliveries will begin in the near future. Biden's team is confident that they will allow Ukraine to launch counterattacking strikes against Russian troops in the Donbas.
In addition, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht approved the supply of 58 PbV-501 armored personnel carriers (German version of the BMP-1) to the Ukrainian army, which were still in service with the National People's Army of the GDR. Delivery of cars to Ukraine will not happen immediately – they need to be repaired beforehand, and this will take several weeks, Welt am Sonntag reports.
In addition, the United States will provide Ukraine with another package of military assistance in the amount of $ 300 million, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.
The package includes laser-guided missile systems, Puma and Switchblade drones, armored vehicles, ammunition, night vision devices, thermal imagers, satellite image services, communication systems, machine guns, medical supplies, RIA Novosti writes.
For his part, Zelensky said in an interview with Fox News that his military does not need bulletproof vests and special helmets, they need heavy weapons. "Just give us missiles, give us planes. Can't you give us an F-18 or an F-19? Give us old Soviet planes. That's all. Put them in my hands. Give me something with which I can protect my state," the politician said.
Russia must react harshly to what is happening – both in the political and military field, since the intervention of NATO countries in the special operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine is unacceptable, said the first deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs Vladimir Dzhabarov.
"Ukraine is practically unable to resist the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on its own, because its military infrastructure is mostly destroyed. Western supplies will not significantly strengthen the Ukrainian army, they are similar to the withdrawal of the APU from a state of clinical death. But they will prolong the war, and hence the number of victims. Thus, these supplies show that NATO does not care about Ukraine at all, but about the inevitable continuation of the conflict," the senator said.
Therefore, according to him, first of all, Moscow will have to raise the issue of the unacceptability of "pumping" Ukraine with weapons during negotiations with Kiev and during dialogue with the West.
"The situation is complicated – if we take a tough position on what is happening in negotiations with Ukraine and the West, they will demand in response from Moscow to stop the special operation, fix a truce and switch exclusively to diplomatic instruments," said Andrey Kortunov, Director General of the Russian Council for International Affairs.
The expert recalled that Moscow has already warned NATO that interference in the special operation threatens to escalate up to the nuclear level.
"Russia and the West need to define the line beyond which intervention is already beginning. For example, the closure of the sky over Ukraine is an intervention, the use of Polish military airfields for servicing Ukrainian Air Force aircraft is also an intervention. As for military assistance, it is a debatable issue, everything depends on its scale and nature. The parties should work out this "gray zone," the analyst explained.
All the equipment that the West wants to supply to Ukraine is large–sized, it will be very difficult to deliver, and even more so to deploy, most of it will be destroyed by Russian precision missiles even before the APU starts operating it, said Konstantin Sivkov, Vice President of the Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences.
In order to make significant changes in the course of the military operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Ukraine needs at least 350-400 strike military aircraft, the expert points out.
"Firstly, I do not know which country can give Ukraine such a number of fighters and bombers. Secondly, it is unclear where they will be based, so much so that they will not be destroyed by Russian missiles on the first night. Thirdly, who will manage them? There are not so many high–class pilots in Ukraine," the source stressed.
If, according to him, NATO sends its pilots to fight, then this will already be characterized as a direct clash with Russia, and the leadership of the alliance immediately said that it excludes such a scenario.
"The same situation is with artillery installations – they also need several hundred to reverse the situation on the fronts. I do not believe in the reality of such a large-scale delivery. By the way, they still have a lot of artillery installations, but there is no fracture. If we are talking about the supply of air defense systems, then such bulky installations will become the first target for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. If they attract their instructors or other specialists to operate air defense systems, then the scenario with the camp of Western mercenaries in the Lviv region, destroyed by our missiles, will repeat," the specialist noted.
Russian troops can block the ways of delivering equipment to the fronts, including with artillery fire, as the militia did in the Ilovaisk boiler in 2015, according to an associate professor of the Department of Political Science and Sociology of the Russian University of Economics. Plekhanova, member of the expert council of "Officers of Russia" Alexander Perendzhiev.
The analyst also recalled that Russia destroyed the fuel storage facilities of the Kremenchug oil Refinery with high–precision weapons - it was the last of the large refineries operating on the territory of Ukraine. Refineries and fuel depots near Odessa were also destroyed.
"In principle, there is not enough fuel in Ukraine now to refuel a large number of armored vehicles. I think all these tanks and infantry fighting vehicles will be taken by Russian troops practically unused and transferred to the DPR and LPR," the expert predicted.
The editor–in-chief of the magazine "Arsenal of the Fatherland" Alexey Leonkov, in turn, noted that now in Ukraine the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are winning all tank duels against Ukrainian crews - and Ukraine no longer has the best specialists, there is simply no one to manage the armored vehicles provided by the West. "Ukraine can land untrained crews, but then it will be a natural meat grinder for the Armed Forces of Ukraine," the expert warned.
Rafael Fakhrutdinov