Many countries have announced sending weapons to Kiev to help face the Russian invasion, but all do not communicate with the same transparency on the subject.
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Ten days after the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the shipments of arms to the Volodymyr Zelensky regime, announced by many European countries from mid-January, begin to be conveyed and to arrive at the destination, according to testimonials and convergent official statements. The details of the equipment sent and the way to assume them politically are very variable from one country to another.
The United States is probably those who have the most assumed, so far, their military support in Ukraine. According to the State Department, US total aid in one year in security has risen to $ 1 billion. Help that has become more amplified since the beginning of hostilities, February 24th. US President Joe Biden approved $ 350 million on February 26, and more than two-thirds of the equipment was provided in five days. According to the New York Times, Washington provided more than 17,000 anti-tank weapons, including Javelin missiles.
The United States is also ready to find ways to provide Ukraine with the planes claimed at COR and Cree by Mr. Zelensky. An idea that includes the wind in the congress. The idea would be to transfer Russian-style aircraft (Mig or Sukhoi), from which countries of Eastern Europe, such as Poland, Bulgaria or Slovakia. Devices on which the Ukrainian army is already formed.
remains to know how these transfers could be organized. On March 6, the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, stated to work with the Polish on the subject: “We support them strongly in the provision of aircraft to the Ukrainians.” But so that there is no “Lack in the own security of Poland”, the United States would consider that the equipment in exchange is F-16. Devices already promised Taiwan, according to New York Times.
A delicate part for Berlin
The debate arises in a different way in Germany. Nine days after giving its green light to a first series of arms delivery to Ukraine (500 stinger-type missiles, 1,400 anti-racked rocket launchers), the German government is ready to provide Other equipment. “All that is possible is currently being studied,” said the Minister of Defense, Christine Lambrecht, Monday, March 7th.
For Berlin, the game is nevertheless delicate. Highly criticized for refusing for weeks to deliver arms to Kiev, before finally deciding the opposite two days after the start of the Russian offensive, the German government does not want to be accused again of lacking solidarity. At the same time, the recent alarm cry of the Chief of the Army of the Army, who, on the first day of the conflict, said the Bundeswehr is “more or less dry”, obliges him to A certain reserve: while a war is raging at two hours of Flight from Berlin, the Germans might not understand that the army, already under-equipped, separates from a part of its material.
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