Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof
The US and allies planned to support a Ukrainian insurgency after a swift Russian conventional victory. Now, they are struggling to sustain a Ukrainian Army that has held its ground and needs more ammo to fight a large-scale conventional war.
www.wsj.com/articles/weapons-for-ukraines-fight-against-russia-flow-through-small-polish-border-towns-11648066417?st=a3pfl3isvt8aqkf&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
Weapons for Ukraine’s Fight Against Russia Flow Through Small Polish Border Towns
U.S. and allies race to buy, deliver more arms as Kyiv warns it is running low
Ukraine’s ambassador to Britain, Vadym Prystaiko, on Wednesday said stocks of some key weapons could soon run out and that Ukrainian forces urgently needed long-range weaponry. “We didn’t have enough in the first place. Running out of weaponry will be seen in the week to come,” Mr. Prystaiko said in a television interview. “Tomorrow, President Zelensky will talk to NATO to see how we can replenish our stocks,” he said.
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“The Ukrainians are expending a lot of ordnance, and this is more than we anticipated,” said a Western security official. “We are trying to step up the flow of weapons to meet that new requirement and there are constant shortages.”
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While U.S. and European officials said they are moving as quickly as possible, some also fear that some of the weapons systems could end up in Russian hands or circulate for years on the black market. Some European nations are reluctant to provide more arms they fear could fuel a war on the continent. And U.S. officials, in the run-up to the Feb. 24 invasion, said they didn’t plan to support Ukraine with arms for a protracted period.
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On a recent day, soldiers from the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division stood by the runway as other personnel swiftly unloaded a Turkish Gulfstream G450, which didn’t appear on ordinary flight-tracking websites. Turkey has supplied armed drones that Ukraine has used to attack Russian armored columns and other targets.
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Before the invasion, weapons manufacturers weren’t geared up to make antitank and antiaircraft arms at a wartime pace. While the U.S. had 13,000 Stingers in its stockpile before the invasion, there were no plans to produce more en masse, U.S. officials said. Militaries in Europe that have given their Stingers and antitank missiles to Ukraine now want to refill depleted stocks, creating competition for new units rolling off the assembly line.
“Ready-made stocks are not inexhaustible,” said a defense contractor in Poland. “It isn’t the arsenal of democracy where refrigerator plants are also making airplanes. No. There is a very limited number of production facilities. You can maybe speed up some stuff, but it’s not like you can suddenly open up two or three new production lines.”
Now, as the warfare appears to emulate World War II, defense contractors are racing to ramp up the supplies of antiaircraft and antitank weaponry and ammunition. Central European defense ministers say they have set up a hotline into Ukraine, so that President Volodymyr Zelensky’s military chiefs can order former Soviet equipment from their stocks.
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The Czech Republic has given Kyiv’s Defense Ministry a list of $500 million of gear in Czech warehouses, and says the U.S. has signaled its willingness to buy much of it, for onward donation to Ukraine. The items on the list range from ordinary machine gun ammunition to antiaircraft missiles capable of intercepting war planes at high altitudes, all of it ready to be delivered within four days of an order.
“The Ukrainians are choosing from it on a daily basis,” said Czech Deputy Defense Minister Tomáš Kopečný. Several times, he added, Russian operatives posing as European or American companies have tried to buy the weaponry, before it can be dispatched eastward into Ukraine.