Half of the Western weapons promised to kyiv are being delivered late, the Ukrainian Defense Minister regretted on Sunday, whose country is urging its allies to send weapons and ammunition to avoid human losses and defeats against the Russians. “At present, a commitment is not synonymous with delivery, 50% of (these) commitments are not delivered on time,” Roustem Oumerov said at a forum in Kiev dedicated to the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Because of these delays, “we are losing people, we are losing territories,” added the minister.
The Ukrainian army, faced with an extremely difficult situation on the front, has just withdrawn from its fortress town of Avdiïvka (East) after four months of tough fighting, citing a lack of men and ammunition. And Russia, confident despite the heavy human cost of the war, pushes ever harder on the Southern and Eastern fronts, without however obtaining a major breakthrough. Western allies, whose support is essential for kyiv, have been reluctant in recent months to validate new budgetary envelopes.
Aid worth $60 billion is blocked in the US Congress, mired in political divisions between Republicans and Democrats, and that from the European Union has fallen behind schedule, even though it was finally validated in February. Despite these worrying signals, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said he was convinced that the United States “will not abandon” kyiv to Russia and will ultimately approve the aid.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly pressed his Western allies in recent days to deliver military assistance more quickly, calling in particular for ammunition, more air defense systems and fighter planes. “You know very well what we need to protect our skies, to strengthen our land army, what we need to sustain and continue our successes at sea, and you know very well that we need this on time, and we are counting on you,” he told a virtual G7 meeting on Saturday, the second anniversary of the Russian invasion.
“Martyrized”
The Ukrainian president also estimated that delays in arms deliveries contributed to the failure of Kiev’s counter-offensive in the summer of 2023. “Last year, during the counter-offensive, we had a lot very useful things, many very important things, but not all of them arrived on time,” he explained on Friday.
The head of German diplomacy Annalena Baerbock, visiting southern Ukraine, said that we should not “minimize this aid (from Ukraine’s allies) as being in vain”. “It saves lives every day,” she insisted from the city of Mykolaiv, seeing it as proof that we must “continue to provide it”.
The day before, however, she had recognized that Ukraine lacked weapons to defend itself, particularly long-range ones. kyiv has long asked Berlin to equip it with Taurus, one of the most modern and effective missiles in the German Air Force. Pope Francis spoke on Sunday of “the martyred Ukrainian people”, calling for a “diplomatic solution to be found in search of a just and lasting peace”.
Strikes continue on Ukrainian territory, targeted daily by Russian missiles and drones. During the night from Saturday to Sunday, a Russian attack on Kostiantynivka (east) left one person injured and damaged numerous civilian buildings, including a train station, businesses and residential buildings, according to the national police. In Nikopol, in the south of the country, a Russian drone dropped explosives on a car, killing the 57-year-old man inside, said the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Serguii Lyssak.