by Andrea Marinelli and Guido Olimpio
The topic of supplies is still central, as the words of the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Brussels show: We need weapons, weapons, weapons
It feels like yesterday. From the camp they said the Ukrainians had only a week’s worth of ammunition and the Russians had three days’ worth of food. Adventurous calculations, news that emerged from the fog of war and turned out to be unfounded: it wasn’t fake news, but propaganda bullets. A month later, the issue of supplies is still the focus of speeches, as Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba’s words in Brussels show: We need weapons, weapons, weapons.
The latest news about the war in Ukraine
The pages
In just a few weeks, we’ve moved from Zelenskyy’s possible escape to an aid program to help him resist or even, some claim, win. Choice depends on different visions. The Baltic States, London and parts of the USA want to remove heavy equipment, especially tanks and artillery, from the hunt list. France, Turkey, Germany and probably Italy are more cautious about the amount and type of shipments. The US State Department for containment of Russia, and consequently Ukraine, should also receive funds calibrated with this interpretation. Who, like the Baltics or the Poles, well knew the Soviet hand for a more decisive approach. On the other hand, apart from the former having nothing to sell in their arsenals, Warsaw can offer the superfluous tanks currently sitting dormant in the depots.
positions fluctuate. We started with a few cases of cartridges and then went through missile systems to tanks. Slovakia sent a first batch of T72 carriages and busways by train. We don’t know what we don’t know, as former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said: The material may get through, but no one admits it. For this reason, faced with the withdrawal of the army and the feared offensive in eastern Ukraine, NATO could change its mind. It has done so in the past.
The shares
Are there enough parts to power the resistance? Some have expressed doubts, particularly about the Stinger antiaircraft missiles and even the antitank javelins. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday that six removals have been made from the stockpiled material since August 2021, a significant number. However, General Mark Milley, Chief of Staff, at the express request of Congress, assured that the supplies would not endanger the stocks (i.e. national defenses). On March 25, Doug Bush, Head of Acquisition and Logistics, assured that production is progressing at a fast pace and can be increased, although some fixes are needed to adjust the supply chain. In fact, another package in favor of the resistance fighters was announced on Wednesday, with new spears.
Great Britain, which always very openly supports those attacked, is considering sending armored vehicles, mastiffs or jackals. The Turks sold another 16 TB2 drones in March, which proved effective in tracking convoys. For the time being, the Bulgarians got away with 2,000 helmets and as many bulletproof vests to ensure the protection of the civilian population. Washington has contacted Cyprus which has T80 tanks and S300 missiles in its army but from Nicosia they declined the invitation as having their own security needs they are not enthusiastic (even for economic ties with the Russians ) and there are export restrictions.
The logistics
It takes between 4 and 6 days to ship arms to Ukraine, Pentagon spokesman Kirby confirmed on Wednesday. The supply chain works like ecommerce, Vince Castillo, a former US Army logistics officer in Iraq, told NPR: it’s divided into first mile, middle mile and last best. The first mile is from the supplier to the manufacturer: in the case of weapons for the Ukrainian resistance, the supplier is the American Army, which has weapons in its bases across Europe and has to get them to NATO bases in the countries bordering the United States , Ukraine, like Poland, Romania or Slovakia.
This first section can be up to 1,000 kilometers long. On the one hand, the central mile, that is, crossing the border usually by land to get to the Ukrainian cities near the combat zones: in this case, all information about the time and place of the expeditions remains classified as long as possible. These convoys can be easily identifiable targets for the Russians, so they are often divided into smaller and more agile expeditions: mostly they move at night when it is safer and there are no civilians, perhaps on roads protected by soldiers who are ready are to respond to others threats. . The last mile is the most complicated, leading from the cities to the front lines: the expeditions are broken up into even smaller convoys that need further protection, and we rely on intelligence to understand what to send to which combat zone. Once at the destination, the weapons are finally distributed to the individual soldiers.
The workout
For the first time, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin admitted at Tuesday’s House hearing that the Pentagon is training Ukrainian soldiers on American soil to teach them how to use the Swithcblade, the drone kamikaze. The United States has always denied taking an active part in resistance training and was in fact trying to recover Sovietdesigned weapons that Ukrainians already know how to use: the only public information so far has been the training program that the CIA conducted in Ukraine from 2015 until the Russian invasion, then evacuation at least officially of all American personnel.
However, during his trip to Poland in late March, Joe Biden committed a faux pas — no, not the one about regime change in Moscow — that implied that the country’s 82nd airborne troops would fly to Ukraine. We are talking about the help in training Ukrainian troops located in Poland, he replied to reporters who asked him for an explanation of this statement: he could have been wrong again or revealed the activity accidentally.
Now the Pentagon has admitted that it is teaching Ukrainians how to use the kamikaze drone, of which it has already sent 100 copies: Apparently, this shipment would have been decided when the American defense found that a dozen Ukrainian soldiers were in the United States States found… for training planned well before the invasion. We took the opportunity to have them in the country to train on the Switchblade for a few days, spokesman Kirby explained. A person can learn how to use this drone properly in two days. The training program started in the fall and is still ongoing at an unidentified American base in the southern United States for security reasons: When the Ukrainians return home in the next few days, they can use the switchblades and have already arrived in Ukraine.
April 7, 2022 (Change April 7, 2022 | 19:01)
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