Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday accused NATO of actively participating in the war in Ukraine and working to dissolve his country.
During an interview aired on the state-owned Rossia-1 channel to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Putin claimed that by “sending tens of billions of dollars in weapons to Ukraine” the North Atlantic Alliance was taking part in the war.
He further accused the West of having “one goal: to disband the former Soviet Union and its fundamental part … the Russian Federation.”
The Russian president said Moscow could not ignore NATO’s nuclear capabilities moving forward and argued that his country was in a fight for its own survival within “this new world that is taking shape [and] being built only in the interests of just one country, the United States.”
“I do not even know if such an ethnic group as the Russian people will be able to survive in the form in which it exists today,” he added.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday accused NATO of actively participating in the war in Ukraine and working to dissolve his country.
During an interview aired on the state-owned Rossia-1 channel to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Putin claimed that by “sending tens of billions of dollars in weapons to Ukraine” the North Atlantic Alliance was taking part in the war.
He further accused the West of having “one goal: to disband the former Soviet Union and its fundamental part … the Russian Federation.”
The Russian president said Moscow could not ignore NATO’s nuclear capabilities moving forward and argued that his country was in a fight for its own survival within “this new world that is taking shape [and] being built only in the interests of just one country, the United States.”
“I do not even know if such an ethnic group as the Russian people will be able to survive in the form in which it exists today,” he added.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
MOSCOW — Every year, during the anniversary of the battle that turned back the Nazi assault on the Soviet Union, the city of Volgograd is briefly renamed Stalingrad, its Soviet-era name.
During this year’s commemoration, however, authorities went further. They unveiled a bust of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, and paraded soldiers dressed as secret police in a bid to emphasize the parallels between Russia’s past and its present.
“It’s unbelievable but true: we are again being threatened by German Leopard tanks,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin, who traveled to Volgograd to deliver a speech on February 2. “Again and again, we have to repel the aggression of the collective West.”
Putin’s statement was full of factual inaccuracies: Russia is fighting not the West but Ukraine, because it invaded the country; the German Leopards being delivered to Kyiv date back only to the 1960s; there’s no plan for them to enter Russian territory.
But the Russian president’s evocation of former victories was telling — it was a distillation of his approach to justifying an invasion that hasn’t gone to plan. These days in Russia, if the present is hard to explain, appeal to the past.
“The language of history has replaced the language of politics,” said Ivan Kurilla, a historian at the European University at St. Petersburg. “It is used to explain what is happening in a simple way that Russians understand.”
Putin has long harkened back to World War II — known in the country as The Great Patriotic War, in which more than 20 million Soviet citizens are estimated to have died.
Invoking the fight against Adolf Hitler simultaneously taps into Russian trauma and frames the country as being on the right side of history. “It has been turned into a master narrative through which [Putin] communicates the basic ideas of what is good and bad; who is friend and who foe,” said Kurilla.
Putin’s announcement of his full-scale assault on Ukraine was no exception. On February 24, 2022, Russians awoke to a televised speech announcing the start of “a special military operation” to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine.
“The official narrative was: ‘there are fascists in Ukraine, and we want to help people there. We are fighting for the sake of a great cause,’” said Tamara Eidelman, an expert in Russian propaganda.
On the streets, however, Russians seemed confused.
Asked in the early days of the war what “denazification” meant by the Russian website 7×7, one man suggested: “Respect for people of different ethnicities, respect for different languages, equality before the law and freedom of the press.”
Russia’s laws punish those seen as discrediting the Russian Armed Forces or spreading fake news by using the word “war” | Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images
Another interviewee ventured a different definition: “Destroy everyone who is not for a normal, peaceful life.”
The term “special military operation” at least was somewhat clearer. It suggested a speedy, professional, targeted offensive.
“There is a certain mundaneness to it — ‘yes, this is going to be unpleasant, but we’ll take care of it quickly,’” said Eidelman, the propaganda expert.
А week after the invasion, Russia’s laws were amended to punish those seen as discrediting the Russian armed forces or spreading fake news, including by using the word “war.”
Historical parallels
As the special military operation turned into a protracted conflict, and the facts on the ground refused to bend to Putin’s narrative, the Kremlin has gradually been forced to change its story.
Images of a bombed maternity hospital in Mariupol or corpses littering the streets of Bucha were dismissed by state propaganda as fake or a provocation — and yet by spring the terms “demilitarization” and “denazification” had practically disappeared from the public sphere.
New justifications for the invasion were inserted into speeches and broadcasts, such as a claim that the United States had been developing biological weapons in Ukraine. In October, Putin declared that one of the main goals of the war had been to provide Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, with a stable water supply.
But the appeal to history has remained central to Putin’s communication effort.
While World War II remains his favorite leitmotif, the Russian president has been expansive in his historical comparisons. In June, he referenced Peter the Great’s campaign to “return what was Russia’s.” And during an October ceremony to lay claim to four regions in Ukraine, it was Catherine the Great who got a mention.
“Every so many months, another story is put forward as if they’re studying the reaction, looking to see what resonates,” said Kurilla.
The search for historical parallels has also bubbled up from below, as even supporters of the war search for justification. “Especially in spring and early summer, there was an attempt to Sovietize the war, with people waving red flags, trying to make sense of it through that lens.”
In the city of Syzran, students were filmed late last year pushing dummy tanks around in a sports hall in a re-enactment of the World War II Battle of Kursk. More recently, law students in St. Petersburg took part in a supposed restaging of the Nuremberg trials, which the region’s governor praised as “timely” in light of Russia’s current struggle against Nazism.
More recent statement by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Vladimir Putin himself have made the idea of “war” less taboo | Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Throughout, the Kremlin has sought to depict the conflict as a battle against powerful Western interests bent on using Ukraine to undermine Russia — a narrative that has become increasingly important as the Kremlin demands bigger sacrifices from the Russian population, most notably with a mobilization campaign in September.
“Long before February last year, people were already telling us: We are being dragged into a war by the West which we don’t want but there is no retreating from,” said Denis Volkov, director of the independent pollster Levada Center.
The sentiment, he added, has been widespread since the nineties, fed by disappointment over Russia’s diminished standing after the Cold War. “What we observe today is the culmination of that feeling of resentment, of unrealized illusions, especially among those over 50,” he said.
Long haul
With the war approaching the one-year mark, the narrative is once again having to adapt.
Even as hundreds in Russia are being prosecuted under wartime censorship laws, slips of the tongue by top officials such as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and even Putin himself in December have made the idea of “war” less taboo.
“We are moving away from a special military operation towards a holy war … against 50 countries united by Satanism,” the veteran propagandist Vladimir Solovyov said on his program in January.
According to Levada, Russians are now expecting the war to last another six months or longer. “The majority keep to the sidelines, and passively support the war, as long as it doesn’t affect them directly,” said Volkov, the pollster.
Meanwhile, reports of Western weapons deliveries have been used to reinforce the argument that Russia is battling the West under the umbrella of NATO — no longer in an ideological sense, but in a literal one.
“A year of war has changed not the words that are said themselves but what they stand for in real life,” said Kurilla, the historian. “What started out as a historic metaphor is being fueled by actual spilled blood.”
In newspaper stands, Russians will find magazines such as “The Historian,” full of detailed spreads arguing that the Soviet Union’s Western allies in World War II were, in fact, Nazi sympathizers all along — another recycled trope from Russian history.
“During the Cold War, you would find caricatures depicting Western leaders such as President Eisenhower in fascist dress and a NATO helmet,” said Eidelman, the expert in Russian propaganda.
“This level of hatred and aggressive nationalism has not been seen since the late Stalin period,” she added.
The anti-West sentiment in Russia has been fed by disappointment over the country’s diminished standing after the Cold War | Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
On Tuesday, three days before the one-year anniversary of the invasion, Putin is scheduled to give another speech. He is expected to distract from Russia’s failure to capture any new large settlements in Ukraine by rehearsing old themes such as his gripes with the West and Russia’s past and present heroism.
There may be a limit, however, to how much the Russian president can infuse his subjects with enthusiasm for his country’s past glories.
In Volgograd, proposals to have the city permanently renamed to Stalingrad have been unsuccessful, with polls showing a large majority of the population is against such an initiative.
When it comes to embracing the past, Russians are still one step behind their leaders.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
US President Joe Biden on Monday made a trip to Kyiv, to celebrate first anniversary of Russia-Ukraine conflict. On the occasion President Biden promised increased arms deliveries for Ukraine global celebration of next anniversary of the conflict.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ordered Air sirens across the capital to welcome the enabler Joe Biden.
In his statement, Joe Biden wished people of Ukraine long live the conflict and many more anniversaries of the conflict.
Sources suggest that Joe Biden isn’t well and he mistakenly reached Ukraine while trying to reach Ohio where a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed, exploding into flames and unleashing a spume of chemical smoke.
[ Disclaimer: With inputs from The Fauxy, an entertainment portal. The content is purely for entertainment purpose and readers are advised not to confuse the articles as genuine and true, these Articles are Fictitious meant only for entertainment purposes. ]
Budapest: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called for peace in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and warned of the escalation of the conflict here.
Giving his annual state of the nation address, Orban said that the conflict could last for years, and everyone in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) is “on the side of the war, except for Hungary”.
In his televised speech, Orban explained that the EU was already at war with Russia, albeit indirectly, because they were sending weapons and training military personnel, Xinhua news agency reported.
“Europe is on the verge of drifting into war, they are walking on a very thin platform,” he said.
The Hungarian PM promised that even if it becomes increasingly hard, Hungary would stick to its position, and continue to maintain economic relations with Russia.
According to Orban, the Hungarian position was only an exception within Europe, but was in fact “quite common in the rest of the world.”
He said that the European population would get tired of the price they have to pay for the sanctions and new governments to be elected would be closer to the Hungarian position.
Because of the “war and high inflation”, Orban called 2022 the most difficult year for Hungary since 1990. He promised that “inflation will return to the single digits”.
“We will stay out of the war, Hungary will remain an island of peace and security, and we will also break inflation, this is the government’s job, there will be no mistakes in it,” he noted.
MUNICH, Germany — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy opened the annual Munich Security Conference on Friday, calling on his Western partners to keep supporting his country against Russia in a battle he compared to the biblical story of David and Goliath.
“The Russian Goliath has already begun to lose,” Zelenskyy said, sitting in his trademark olive green sweatshirt behind a desk in Kyiv. “There’s no alternative to our victory.”
Zelenskyy thanked the U.S. and European countries for the military support they’ve sent his nation, while also urging them to do more, saying that Ukraine’s “sling” needed to be stronger. (In the biblical account, young Israelite shepherd David took down the Philistine giant Goliath with a sling and a small stone.) Zelenskyy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin was trying to drag out the conflict, betting that the world would lose interest in the war.
“We need speed,” Zelenskyy said. “Speed is crucial.”
Zelenskyy also dismissed recent saber-rattling by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who said Thursday that his country was prepared to join Russia’s war against Ukraine, if attacked.
“The probability that Belarus is going get involved in the war is low,” he said. “The people in Belarus are not willing to fight against Ukraine. It won’t be easy to convince them.”
He predicted that if Belarusian troops did become involved, they would suffer considerable losses.
Zelenskyy, whose remarks received enthusiastic applause from the audience of policymakers and military officials gathered in Munich, closed his speech by calling for the acceleration of his country’s integration into the Western fold.
“There’s no alternative to Ukraine in the EU, there’s no alternative to Ukraine in NATO, there’s no alternative to our unity,” he said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
MUNICH — China is trying to drive a fresh wedge between Europe and the United States as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine trudges past its one-year mark.
Such was the motif of China’s newly promoted foreign policy chief Wang Yi when he broke the news at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday that President Xi Jinping would soon present a “peace proposal” to resolve what Beijing calls a conflict — not a war — between Moscow and Kyiv. And he pointedly urged his European audience to get on board and shun the Americans.
In a major speech, Wang appealed specifically to the European leaders gathered in the room.
“We need to think calmly, especially our friends in Europe, about what efforts should be made to stop the warfare; what framework should there be to bring lasting peace to Europe; what role should Europe play to manifest its strategic autonomy,” said Wang, who will continue his Europe tour with a stop in Moscow.
In contrast, Wang launched a vociferous attack on “weak” Washington’s “near-hysterical” reaction to Chinese balloons over U.S. airspace, portraying the country as warmongering.
“Some forces might not want to see peace talks to materialize,” he said, widely interpreted as a reference to the U.S. “They don’t care about the life and death of Ukrainians, [nor] the harms on Europe. They might have strategic goals larger than Ukraine itself. This warfare must not continue.”
Yet at the conference, Europe showed no signs of distancing itself from the U.S. nor pulling back on military support for Ukraine. The once-hesitant German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Europe to give Ukraine even more modern tanks. And French President Emmanuel Macron shot down the idea of immediate peace talks with the Kremlin.
And, predictably, there was widespread skepticism that China’s idea of “peace” will match that of Europe.
“China has not been able to condemn the invasion,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a group of reporters. Beijing’s peace plan, he added, “is quite vague.” Peace, the NATO chief emphasized, is only possible if Russia respects Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Europe watches with caution
Wang’s overtures illustrate the delicate dance China has been trying to pull off since the war began.
Keen to ensure Russia is not weakened in the long run, Beijing has offered Vladimir Putin much-needed diplomatic support, while steering clear of any direct military assistance that would attract Western sanctions against its economic and trade relations with the world.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Wang while in Munich | Johannes Simon/Getty Images
“We will put forward China’s position on the political settlement on the Ukraine crisis, and stay firm on the side of peace and dialogue,” Wang said. “We do not add fuel to the fire, and we are against reaping benefit from this crisis.”
According to Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who met Wang earlier this week, Xi will make his “peace proposal” on the first anniversary of the war, which is Friday.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Wang while in Munich. He said he hoped to have a “frank” conversation with the Beijing envoy.
“We believe that compliance with the principle of territorial integrity is China’s fundamental interest in the international arena,” Kuleba told journalists in Munich. “And that commitment to the observance and protection of this principle is a driving force for China, greater than other arguments offered by Ukraine, the United States, or any other country.”
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell is also expected to meet Wang later on Saturday.
Many in Munich were wary of the upcoming Chinese plan.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock welcomed China’s effort to use its influence to foster peace but told reporters she had “talked intensively” with Wang during a bilateral meeting on Friday about “what a just peace means: not rewarding the attacker, the aggressor, but standing up for international law and for those who have been attacked.”
“A just peace,” she added, “presupposes that the party that has violated territorial integrity — meaning Russia — withdraws its troops from the occupied country.”
One reason for Europe’s concerns is the Chinese peace plan could undermine an effort at the United Nations to rally support for a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which will be on the U.N.’s General Assembly agenda next week, according to three European officials and diplomats.
Taiwan issue stokes up US-China tension
If China was keen to talk about peace in Ukraine, it’s more reluctant to do so in a case closer to home.
When Wolfgang Ischinger, the veteran German diplomat behind the conference, asked Wang if he could reassure the audience Beijing was not planning an imminent military escalation against Taiwan, the Chinese envoy was non-committal.
Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said “what is happening in Europe today could happen in east Asia tomorrow” | Johannes Simon/Getty Images
“Let me assure the audience that Taiwan is part of Chinese territory. It has never been a country and it will never be a country in the future,” Wang said.
The worry over Taiwan resonated in a speech from NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who said “what is happening in Europe today could happen in east Asia tomorrow.” Reminding the audience of the painful experience of relying on Russia’s energy supply, he said: “We should not make the same mistakes with China and other authoritarian regimes.”
But China’s most forceful attack was reserved for the U.S. Calling its decision to shoot down Chinese and other balloons “absurd” and “near-hysterical,” Wang said: “It does not show the U.S. is strong; on the contrary, it shows it is weak.
Wang also amplified the message in other bilateral meetings, including one with Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. “U.S. bias and ignorance against China has reached a ridiculous level,” he said. “The U.S. … has to stop this kind of absurd nonsense out of domestic political needs.”
It remains unclear if Wang will hold a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken while in Germany, as has been discussed.
Hans von der Burchard and Lili Bayer reported from Munich, and Stuart Lau reported from Brussels.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Beijing’s top envoy to the EU on Wednesday questioned the West’s call to help Ukraine achieve “complete victory,” on the eve of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s possible arrival in Brussels.
Fu Cong, the Chinese ambassador to the EU, also criticized the bloc for “erosion” of its commitment on Taiwan, warning “senior officials from the EU institutions” to stop visiting the self-ruled island.
Fu’s provocative comments on Ukraine and Taiwan, two of the most sensitive geopolitical controversies between China and the West, come as Chinese President Xi Jinping is planning a trip to Moscow, according to the Russian government.
Insisting that the Russia-Ukraine “conflict” was merely an “unavoidable” talking point, Fu said Beijing otherwise enjoys a multifaceted “traditional friendship” with Moscow.
“Frankly speaking, we are quite concerned about the possible escalation of this conflict,” Fu said at an event hosted by the European Policy Centre in Brussels. “And we don’t believe that only providing weapons will actually solve the problem.”
“We are quite concerned about people talking about winning a complete victory on the battlefield. We believe that the right place would be at the negotiating table,” Fu added.
His remarks come on the same day as Zelenskyy visits London, his first trip to Western Europe since Russia launched its full-scale invasion almost a year ago. POLITICO reported that Zelenskyy — who according to his aides has never had his calls picked up by Xi, while the Chinese leader has instead met or called Putin on multiple occasions over the past year — was also planning a visit to Brussels on Thursday, before bungled EU communications threw the trip into doubt.
The idea of a “complete victory” for Ukraine has been most vocally supported by Baltic and Eastern European countries. French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed support for “victory” for Ukraine.
But toeing Xi’s line, Fu said the “security concerns of both sides” — Ukraine as well as Russia — should be taken care of.
Fu also dismissed the comparison between Ukraine and Taiwan, both of which face military threats from a nuclear-armed neighbor.
“I must state up front that [the] Ukrainian crisis and the Taiwan issue are two completely different things. Ukraine is an independent state, and Taiwan is part of China,” he said. “So there’s no comparability between the two issues.”
He went on to criticize the EU’s handling of the Taiwan issue.
“Nowadays, what we’re seeing is that there is some erosion of these basic commitments. We see that the parliamentarians and also senior officials from the EU institutions are also visiting Taiwan,” he said.
The European Commission has not publicized any details of its officials’ visit to Taiwan. The European External Action Service, the EU’s diplomatic arm, has not replied to a request for comment.
If the EU signed an investment treaty with Taiwan, Fu said this would “fundamentally change … or shake the foundation” of EU-China relations. “It is that serious.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
“Attention. The air alert is over. May the force be with you.”
That voice reading that message, heard on the Englishversion of an app signaling the end of Russian air raids over Ukraine, belongs to Luke Skywalker (well, the actor Mark Hamill).
The app received a Star Wars-themed update last year, just one of several actions that Hamill has taken to support Ukraine in its fight against Vladimir Putin’s “evil empire.”
In an exclusive interview with POLITICO, Hamill said that his position as an ambassador for the fundraising platform United24’s “Army of Drones” project is the most important role he’s ever played.
“I’m an actor, I deal in illusion and fantasy,” he said from his house in Malibu, California. “I’m like a modern-day court jester.” But the role helping Ukraine “is much more meaningful than what I’m used to doing. And I’m happy to do it.”
Moreover, Hamill said he is not only an ambassador but a “good soldier” and would do anything that Volodymyr Zelenskyy (or his fundraising team) asks him to do. “I follow orders,” Hamill said.
POLITICO revealed last week that Hamill is selling signed posters to raise cash for maintaining the Ukrainian army’s drone supply. It really is the return of the Jedi — Hamill revealed he hasn’t sold autographed items since 2017, when “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” came out. “It’s just not something I do,” he said. The posters are expected to arrive in Kyiv and go on sale any day now.
The “Army of Drones” project for which Hamill is an ambassador involves drone procurement and maintenance, as well as pilot training, with the drones used to monitor the front line.
It is a joint venture between the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the fundraising platform United24, which was set up by Zelenskyy and has so far raised more than €252 million.
“Drones are so vital in this conflict. They are the eyes in the sky. They protect the border, they monitor,” Hamill said, adding that Russia is using drones to attack civilians while Ukraine uses them as reconnaissance support to gather information.
The actor said he was “honored” that Zelenskyy personally asked him to come on board. “I’m not used to being contacted by world leaders,” he said.
But he is used to taking a political stand.
Referring to himself as a “life-long Democrat,” Hamill is very vocal on Twitter with his support of the U.S. Democrats and has critcized former President Donald Trump.
“Every Democrat that asked me to help them in their campaigns, doing Zooms and appearances … I said yes to all of them,” Hamill said, before adding proudly that he once received a letter from President Joe Biden, although: “I follow him on Twitter, but he doesn’t follow me back.”
But at the moment Hamill’s political focus is on Ukraine, and he said he feels “obligated” to do everything that Zelenskyy’s fundraising team asks him to do, “however small it is.”
Zelenskyy thanked Hamill with a virtual meeting, in which the president said: “The light will win over darkness. I believe in this, our people believe in this.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
BRUSSELS — With Ukraine’s partners racing to send more weapons to Kyiv amid an emerging Russian offensive, fulfilling Ukrainian requests is becoming trickier.
Ukraine is still waiting for promised deliveries of modern tanks. Combat jets, though much discussed, are mired in the throes of government hesitation.
On top of that, Kyiv is using thousands of rounds of ammunition per day — and Western production simply can’t keep up.
As members of the U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group gather in Brussels on Tuesday to coordinate arms assistance to Ukraine, they face pressure to expedite delivery and provide even more advanced capabilities to Ukrainian forces.
“We have received good signals,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address following visits to London, Paris and Brussels.
“This applies both to long-range missiles and tanks, and to the next level of our cooperation — combat aircraft,” he said, however adding, “We still need to work on this.”
And while most of Ukraine’s partners are committed to responding to Zelenskyy’s stump tour with expanded support as the conflict threatens to escalate, Western governments will have to overcome political and practical hurdles.
“It is clear that we are in a race of logistics,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Monday. “Key capabilities like ammunition, fuel, and spare parts must reach Ukraine before Russia can seize the initiative on the battlefield.”
Existing and future supply of weapons to Ukraine will both be on the table when the defense group — made up of about 50 countries and popularly known at the Ramstein format — meets at NATO headquarters.
NATO allies will also hold a meeting of defense ministers directly afterward to hear the latest assessment from Ukrainian counterparts and discuss the alliance’s future defense challenges.
Ukrainian officials will use the session, which would typically be held at the U.S. base in Ramstein, Germany, to share their latest needs with Western officials — from air defense to ground logistics — while it will also be a venue for Kyiv’s supporters to check in on implementation of earlier pledges and availabilities in the near future.
The aim of the session, said a senior European diplomat, is “to step up military support as much as needed — not only commitments, but actual speedy deliverables is of particular significance.”
“Tanks are needed not on paper but in the battlefield,” said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of discussions.
Ammo, ammo, ammo
One of the most pressing issues on the table in Brussels this week is how to keep the weapons already sent to Ukraine firing.
“Of course it is important to discuss new systems, but the most urgent need is to ensure that all the systems which are already there, or have been pledged, are delivered and work as they should,” Stoltenberg said.
During meetings with EU heads on Thursday, Zelenskyy and his team provided each leader with an individualized list requesting weapons and equipment based on the country’s known stocks and capabilities.
But there was one common theme.
“The first thing on the list was, everywhere, the ammunition,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said.
“If you have the equipment and you don’t have the ammunition, then it’s no use,” the Estonian leader told reporters on Friday.
And while Ukraine is in dire need of vast amounts of ammo to keep fighting, Western countries’ own stocks are running low.
“It’s a very real concern,” said Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. Army Europe. “None of us, including the United States, is producing enough ammunition right now,” he said in a phone interview on Sunday.
Munitions will also be top of mind at the session of NATO defense ministers on Wednesday, who will discuss boosting production of weapons, ammunition and equipment, along with future defense spending targets for alliance members.
Boosting stockpiles and production, Stoltenberg emphasized on Monday, “requires more defense expenditure by NATO allies.”
Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty images
And while the NATO chief said some progress has been made on work with industry on plans to boost stockpile targets, some current and former officials have expressed frustration about the pace of work.
Kallas last week raised the idea of joint EU purchases to help spur production and hasten deliveries of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, although it’s not clear whether this plan would enjoy sufficient support within the bloc — and how fast it could have an impact.
Hodges thinks companies need a clearer demand signal from governments. “We need industry to do more,” he said.
But he noted, “These are not charities … they are commercial businesses, and so you have to have an order with money before they start making it.”
Jets fight fails to take off (for now)
Fighter jets are a priority ask for Ukrainian officials, although Western governments seem not yet ready to make concrete commitments.
Numerous countries have expressed openness to eventually providing Ukraine with jets, indicating that the matter is no longer a red line. Regardless, hesitation remains.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg | Valeria Mongelli/AFP via Getty Images
The U.K. has gone the furthest so far, announcing that it will train Ukrainian pilots on fighter jets. But when it comes to actually providing aircraft, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace cautioned that “this is not a simple case of towing an aircraft to the border.”
Polish President Andrzej Duda, meanwhile, said sending F-16 aircraft would be a “very serious decision” which is “not easy to take,” arguing that his country does not have enough jets itself.
For some potential donors, the jets debate revolves around both timing and utility.
“The essential question is: What do they want to do with planes? It’s not clear,” said one French diplomat, who was unauthorized to speak publicly. “Do they think that with 50 or 100 fighter jets, they can retake the Donbas?” the diplomat said.
The diplomat said there is no point in training Ukrainians on Western jets now. “It’ll take over six months to train them, so it doesn’t respond to their immediate imperatives.”
But, the diplomat added, “maybe some countries should give them MiGs, planes that they can actually fly.”
Slovakia is in fact moving closer to sending MiG-29 jets to Ukraine.
“We want to do it,” said a Slovak official who was not at liberty to disclose their identity. “But we must work out the details on how,” the official said, adding that a domestic process and talks with Ukraine still need to take place.
No big jet announcements are expected at the Tuesday meeting, though the issue is likely to be discussed.
Where are the tanks?
And while Western governments have already — with great fanfare — struck a deal to provide Ukraine with modern tanks, questions over actual deliveries will also likely come up at Tuesday’s meeting.
Germany’s leadership in particular has stressed it’s time for countries that supported the idea of sending tanks to live up to their rhetoric.
“Germany is making a very central contribution to ensuring that we provide rapid support, as we have done in the past,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said last week.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is shown an anti-aircraft gun tank Gepard | Morris MacMatzen/Getty Images
“We are striving to ensure that many others who have come forward in the past now follow up on this finger-pointing with practical action,” he went on. Germany’s goal is for Ukraine to receive tanks by the end of March, and training has already begun.
Along with tanks, another pending request that Ukrainian officials will likely bring up this week is long-range missiles.
Hodges, who has been advocating for the West to give Ukraine the weapons it would need to retake Crimea, said he believes long-range precision weapons are the key. “That’s how you defeat mass with precision.”
Any such weapon, he argued, “has got to be at the top of the list.”
Clea Caulcutt contributed reporting from Paris and Hans von der Buchard contributed from Berlin.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
