Ukraine's Defense Minister says delays in arms shipments lead to troop and territory losses.
Half of the Western military support promised to Ukraine does not arrive on time, complicating the task of military planners and ultimately costing the lives of soldiers in Russia's war, the Ukrainian defense minister said.
Speaking in “Ukraine. Year 2024” in kyiv on Sunday, Rustan Umerov stressed that each delayed aid shipment meant losses of Ukrainian troops and underlined Russia's superior military power.
It has been two years since Russia invaded Ukraine and while commemorations to mark the second anniversary brought expressions of continued support, new bilateral security agreements and new aid commitments from Ukraine's Western allies, Umerov said they still had They must fulfill their commitments if Kiev has any chance of resisting Moscow.
“We look at the enemy: their economy is almost 2 trillion dollars, they use up to 15 percent of the official and unofficial budget. [funds] for war, which represents more than 100 billion dollars a year. Basically, when a commitment does not arrive on time, we lose people, we lose territory,” he stated.
In recent weeks, fighting has intensified on parts of the front line. On Sunday, Russian shelling and rocket attacks continued to hit southern and eastern Ukraine, as local Ukrainian officials reported that at least two civilians were killed and eight others wounded in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson provinces.
Moscow and kyiv also continued to trade nighttime drone attacks: Ukraine's air defenses shot down 16 of 18 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched overnight by Moscow, and a Russian drone attacked a facility on Sunday morning. unspecified in the western Khmelnytskyi region of Ukraine, the regional military administration reported. reported without giving details.
Russian troops also appeared to be pressing west of Avdiivka, the strategic town whose capture this month gave Moscow a significant victory.
Umerov and Ukrainian Army Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskii toured front-line combat posts early Sunday amid growing ammunition shortages and stubborn Russian attacks in the east.
They listened to frontline troops and “thoroughly analyzed” the battlefield situation during their visit, Syrskii said in a Telegram update. He did not specify where exactly he and Umerov went, but said “the situation is difficult” for Ukrainian troops and “needs constant monitoring” in many stretches of the front.
Europe has admitted that it will not meet its plan to deliver more than one million artillery shells to Ukraine by March, and instead hopes to complete shipments by the end of the year.
Umerov stressed that such delays put Ukraine at an additional disadvantage “in the mathematics of war” against Russia, which the West says is increasingly building a war economy.
kyiv has also been weakened by the blocking of a vital $60 billion US aid package amid political wrangling in the US Congress.
US President Joe Biden said the delays directly contributed to Ukraine being forced to withdraw from Avdiivka.
On Sunday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said he was “deeply convinced that the United States will not abandon Ukraine in terms of financial, military and armed support.”
Meanwhile, at the Kiev forum, in addition to highlighting issues related to military deliveries, Umerov insisted that Ukrainian forces were doing “everything possible, and also the impossible, to ensure a breakthrough” this year.
The Minister of Defense affirmed that there is already a “strong” military strategy for the coming months, but did not reveal details.
