U.S. and Allies Pledge Additional Arms for
Ukraine, but Kyiv Wants More
Some NATO countries are wary of sending heavy weapons,
hoping for a negotiated truce, but the alliance insists publicly that it is
committed to helping Ukraine defeat Russia.
Steven Erlanger
By Steven Erlanger
June 15, 2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/world/europe/biden-ukraine-weapons.html
BRUSSELS —
President Biden on Wednesday announced a further $1 billion in weapons and aid
for Ukraine, as the United States and its allies met to craft a response to
Ukraine’s increasingly urgent calls for advanced arms to beat back Russia’s
invasion.
The
package, detailed by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III after a meeting
with allies at NATO headquarters in Brussels, includes more long-range
artillery, anti-ship missile launchers and more rounds for howitzers and for a
sophisticated American rocket system on which Ukrainians are currently being
trained. Overall, the United States has now committed about $5.6 billion in
security assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 24.
Mr. Biden
said in a statement that he had told President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine
about the new weapons during a 40-minute call Wednesday morning. Mr. Zelensky and
his aides have recently ramped up public pressure on the West to supply vastly
more of the sophisticated armaments it has already sent, questioning their
allies’ commitment to the Ukrainian cause and insisting that nothing else can
stop the inexorable, brutal Russian advance in eastern Ukraine.
But Western
officials and arms experts caution that flooding the battlefield with advanced
weapons is far slower and more difficult than it sounds, facing obstacles in
manufacturing, delivery, training and compatibility — and in avoiding depletion
of Western arsenals.
The leaders
of the European Union’s largest countries — Germany, France and Italy — are
expected to pay their first visit to Mr. Zelensky in Ukraine on Thursday, in a
show of solidarity, but it remains unclear whether they will have much to offer.
The leaders — Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, President Emmanuel Macron of
France and Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy — have all expressed the desire
for a more rapid conclusion of the war through peace talks with Russia, raising
hackles in Ukraine.
Mr. Austin,
together with Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, met at NATO
headquarters with defense officials from some 45 countries supporting Ukraine,
to try to assess what weapons Ukraine needs right now and how its allies can
best provide them.
“We can’t
afford to let up, and we can’t lose steam,” Mr. Austin said in opening the
gathering, urging allies to redouble their efforts to help Ukraine.
“We must
intensify our shared commitment to Ukraine’s self-defense, and we must push
ourselves even harder to ensure that Ukraine can defend itself, its citizens
and its territory,” he added.
He said
that Germany would offer Ukraine three long-range, multiple-launch artillery
rocket systems with ammunition. Slovakia is promising helicopters and
ammunition, and Canada, Poland and the Netherlands pledged more artillery.
President
Vladimir V. Putin’s forces, advancing in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine,
are close to capturing Sievierodonetsk, the city that has been the focus of the
fighting, and Ukrainian troops in the area are at risk of encirclement. In what
seems like a replay of the siege in Mariupol, hundreds of civilians and troops
are sheltering in bunkers below an industrial plant in the city.
Ukraine,
Mr. Austin said, “is facing a pivotal moment on the battlefield.”
The Russian
military in Donbas is relying heavily on its immense advantage in long-range
artillery, pounding Ukrainian soldiers — as well as cities and towns — from a
distance before trying to move in. The Ukrainians have drawn them into some
close-quarters combat, with both sides reportedly suffering heavy casualties.
“It is
vital to hold on there, in Donbas,” Mr. Zelensky said in a video address early
Wednesday. “The more losses the enemy suffers there, the less power they will
have to continue the aggression.”
Gen. Mark
A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in Brussels that not
just the sovereignty of Ukraine was at stake, but “the rules-based
international order is also under threat due to the actions of Russia in
Ukraine.”
NATO
defense ministers are preparing for the alliance’s annual summit in Madrid this
month, where it will unveil its first new strategic concept since 2010, when it
described Russia as a potential partner. The new stance is being negotiated in
drafts but is understood to set out a direction for NATO that sees Russia as an
adversary, and mentions the threats posed to the trans-Atlantic alliance by
China for the first time.
The
ministers are also discussing how to satisfy Turkey, which has put a hold on
the membership applications of Sweden and Finland over larger concerns about
Kurdish separatism and terrorism. In response to Mr. Putin’s invasion of
Ukraine, the Swedes and Finns decided to abandon their long-held military
nonalignment and join NATO.
Ukrainian
officials have been pleading daily for more long-range artillery and complaining
loudly that the West has been to slow to provide it. The howitzers and rocket
launchers delivered or pledged by the United States and others fall far short
of what Ukraine says it needs to match Russian firepower.
Mykhailo
Podolyak, a leading adviser to Mr. Zelensky, said this week that Ukraine needs
1,000 155-mm howitzers, 300 multiple-launch rocket systems and 500 tanks, among
other things, to achieve battlefield parity — several times as much heavy
weaponry as has been promised.
Mr. Austin
and NATO insist they understand the urgency.
“Russia is
using its long-range fires to try to overwhelm Ukrainian positions,” said Mr.
Austin, a retired four-star Army general.
The most
advanced weapons the United States has so far supplied Ukraine include four
HIMARS truck-mounted multiple-launch rocket launchers, with rockets that have a
range of up to 40 miles, greater than anything Ukraine currently possesses. The
first Ukrainian team is scheduled to complete its training on the system on
Wednesday, and it will be deployed in the battlefield next week, a Biden
administration official said.
The package
announced on Wednesday includes another three HIMARS launchers. Germany pledged
three similar launchers, and Britain had previously promised three.
The new
U.S. commitment also includes 18 M777 155-mm howitzers, in addition to 108
already delivered, and 36,000 shells for them.
Mr. Austin
and General Milley pushed back on the charge that the allies were being too
cautious in rushing advanced weapons to Ukraine, saying that everything was
being done in coordination with Ukrainian military leaders.
“I think
the international community has done a pretty good job of providing that
capability. But it’s never enough,” Mr. Austin said. “And so we’re going to
continue to work hard to move as much capability as we can as fast as we can.”
But
promising weapons and delivering them are two different things.
It’s one
thing to get a large howitzer or tank or thousands of artillery shells to
Ukraine’s western borders. But given that NATO countries do not want to risk
direct confrontation with Russian forces, transport from there must be done by
Ukrainians or private contractors.
Simply
getting the weapons across Ukraine to the eastern battlegrounds depends on
railroads and transport networks that are being bombed and shelled by Russian
forces to disrupt supply.
Ukraine’s
military is running very low on shells for its artillery based on Soviet
designs, some of it dating to the Soviet era, and Western countries do not make
compatible ammunition. Former Soviet bloc countries like Poland have only so
many munitions that are familiar to Ukrainian soldiers and work with their
guns.
More modern
Western equipment requires training, done in other countries, with those
Ukrainians trained sent back to operate equipment or train others.
Modern
weapons also require sophisticated maintenance, which takes further training,
and American weapons generally do not use the metric system, which means
different tools and wrenches.
And
different NATO member countries have varying equipment requiring varying
training and tools. The French have provided Ukraine some of the most
sophisticated artillery in the world, the Caesar self-propelled howitzer. Like
the American M777, it fires 155-mm shells, but operating the two guns is not
the same.
And not
only are sophisticated weapons systems expensive, but the supply is limited and
production is often slow. Some countries sending arms to Ukraine have expressed
fears of depleting their own stocks and weakening their national security, and
some have secured commitments from the United States and others to provide
replacements.
The United
States has also been concerned that the Ukrainians not be given weapons with
such long ranges that they can hit targets deep within Russia itself. So it did
not immediately supply the HIMARS mobile rocket launcher, and it is not
supplying the longest-range rockets the system can use.
There are
also concerns about keeping control of advanced technology. For instance, there
are efforts to get Ukraine more sophisticated anti-ship missiles, to drive the
Russian navy further from the Ukrainian coast off Odesa. But those missiles
include technology that can only be exported after obtaining special
permission, and there are concerns that such weapons not fall into the hands of
the Russians.
The United
States and its allies have been careful to express sympathy for Ukraine’s
plight, and not to say that Kyiv’s complaints about the pace of supply are
unfair or unfounded.
“It’s an
evolving list,” said the U.S. ambassador to NATO, Julianne Smith. “The list
that they gave us early on in the conflict looks very different from the list
that we’re talking about now. We were heavily focused in the beginning on air
defense. We transitioned to a conversation about ammunition. We’ve had moments
where we’ve talked about coastal defense. We’re talking about heavy rocket
artillery. We have shifted the conversation.”
NATO member
countries will continue to provide Ukraine with heavy weapons and long-range
systems, and a new package of assistance to Kyiv will be agreed on by allies in
consultation with Ukraine, NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said
before the defense ministers’ meeting Wednesday.
“Ukraine is
in a really very critical situation, so there is an urgent need for support,”
he said.
Eric Schmitt,
Michael D. Shear and David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington.
Steven
Erlanger is the chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe, based in Brussels. He
previously reported from London, Paris, Jerusalem, Berlin, Prague, Moscow and
Bangkok. @StevenErlanger
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