The US weapons will arrive in stoppage time, at the last moment to reinforce the Ukrainian army against the Russian summer offensive. The invading troops are already advancing on the Donetsk front, in the east of the country. Ukraine suffers from an increasingly high shortage of ammunition and is inferior in all material aspects and in the number of soldiers. The White House is already ready to deliver in a week, according to
The Washington Post
, the first round of artillery ammunition, short-range missiles for the Himars rocket launchers and air defense systems.
The 60.84 billion dollars (about 57 billion euros) in US aid are not enough to reverse Russian dominance on the battlefield, but they are enough to contain its push. There is an eloquent figure about this: the budget of the Russian Ministry of Defense for 2024 will exceed 129 billion euros, triple that of the Ukrainian one. Three to one is precisely the minimum superiority necessary, according to military theory, for an army to attack with certain guarantees of success. The problem for Ukraine is that Russian superiority is much greater today: the artillery rounds they fire per day are between six and 10 times higher than the Ukrainian ones. And Russia has 10 times more armor on the Donetsk front than the defending forces, as an officer from the Ukrainian 47th Mechanized Brigade explained to EL PAÍS last week.
It is also urgent for Ukraine to strengthen its anti-aircraft defense arsenal. The interception rate of Russian missiles has fallen from 80% in 2023 to 60% this spring. In the early hours of Saturday, only two of seven Russian rockets were shot down. The reason for this is that the invader's ballistic arsenal is at its maximum and the Ukrainian anti-aircraft weapons are at a minimum. Russian arms production is the highest in decades today: Ukrainian intelligence services assure that the invader's arsenal of long-range missiles is more than 1,000 units, despite sanctions from Europe and the United States to export electronic components to Russia. necessary for the manufacture of these weapons. The Russian Ministry of Defense assures that in 2023 it also produced 1,500 new tanks, much higher than the combined production of all NATO countries.
Ukrainian defense officers and analysts consulted in recent months by this newspaper indicate that the assistance of NATO countries to their Armed Forces should be at least six times greater to significantly push back Russia. This is unlikely to happen because it would represent a radical change in the international bid to defeat Russia. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned on numerous occasions, international allies have provided his country with just enough to resist.
In the future it will also be more difficult to agree on new aid packages for Ukraine: the EU financing plan approved in February, for five years, and valued at 50 billion euros, became a reality after months of discussions between Member states. The US military party will arrive in Ukraine after more than half a year of differences between the Democratic and Republican Parties, especially due to former President Donald Trump's opposition to arming Ukraine due to his affinity with the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, and because he considers that It is a waste of money with no signs of giving results.
Russian fighters in Ukraine
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The Institute for the Study of War, a US reference center in the analysis of the conflict in Ukraine, warned this Saturday that kyiv's air weakness is allowing, for the first time, Russian fighters to enter up to 100 kilometers into Ukraine territory. free Ukraine, bombing Ukrainian military positions with ease. kyiv has demanded that the United States deliver at least seven more batteries of Patriot anti-aircraft missiles. Germany, which in 2024 has received solid military support from Ukraine, has committed to delivering a Patriot battery and studying the supply of more units of its Iris-T defense system.
Washington's aid does not include the F-16 fighters, which are produced in the United States, but which will be provided by European countries starting this summer. What the White House assistance package would provide are components for the repair of these aircraft, in addition to missiles for the Patriots. The tension in the Middle East also plays against Ukrainian interests, because Washington needs its weapons to protect its bases in the area and, above all, to supply Israel.
Since the start of the war, the United States has provided some 42.5 billion euros in military aid. Added to the contributions from European allies, Ukraine had nearly 100 billion in military material until January 2024. Thanks to this, its Armed Forces were able to expel the invading troops from the province of Kharkiv and half of Kherson in 2022. But the current moment is different because Russia built a very strong defensive line along 800 kilometers of front between the end of 2022 and during 2023. The main item of military aid was allocated for the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer of 2023, which ended in failure precisely due to the solidity of the Russian defensive line and the lack of Ukrainian aerial fire.
The 57 billion that Congress has approved are for a plan by President Joe Biden that goes beyond 2024. The American arms industry, also that of the European NATO countries, is at the limit of production and the delivery of military equipment to Kiev will inevitably be gradual. More and more European leaders are raising their voices for the European Union to assume the role of defending the United States in the face of growing skepticism in its political class and in its society to get involved in the Russian threat. Countries such as the Baltic countries, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, the Czech Republic, but also Germany, have stepped up their arms deliveries to Ukraine this year.
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