Last Sunday, Ukraine received a shipment of anti-armor rockets, missiles and much-needed 155mm artillery shells as Russia ramps up pressure on Ukrainian forces across a 600-mile front. This was the first part of $61 billion in military aid that President Biden approved just four days ago.
The second batch of these weapons and ammunition arrived on Monday. And a new supply of Patriot interceptor missiles from Spain arrived in Poland on Tuesday. A senior Spanish official said they would soon reach the Ukrainian front.
Moves are underway to transfer weapons to the disadvantaged Ukrainian military, which is desperately in need of support. Last week, planes, trains and trucks loaded with ammunition and small arms systems destined for transport across Ukraine's border continued to arrive at NATO warehouses in Europe.
“Now we need to act quickly, and we are doing so,” Biden said on April 24 as he signed the bill authorizing the aid. “We are preparing to begin shipping immediately,” he added.
But maintaining a sense of urgency may be difficult for Biden and other NATO allies. Weapons promised by the US, UK and Germany, all of which have announced major new military aid in the past three weeks, will take months to arrive in sufficient quantities to shore up Ukraine's defenses on the battlefield. Officials said this could happen.
This has raised questions about Ukraine's ability to thwart a Russian attack that has put Kiev at a disadvantage for several months.
But Ukraine has little time to lose against Russia's steady advance.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril D. Haines told Congress on Thursday that Russia could breach some front lines in eastern Ukraine. A widely anticipated Russian offensive this month or next only adds to the gravity.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told a press conference in Kyiv on Monday, along with NATO Secretary-General Jens, that “Russian forces are currently trying to take advantage of this situation while we are waiting for supplies from our partners, primarily the United States.'' ''. Stoltenberg.
“Some deliveries have already been completed,” he said, but added: “I just want to say that we don't have everything we need to equip the brigade.”
Mr. Stoltenberg also seemed anxious. “Announcing alone is not enough,” he says. “We need to confirm the delivery of the weapon.”
A classified U.S. military assessment conducted this week concluded that Russia will continue to make modest advances in the east and southeast until Victory Day, May 9, a senior U.S. official said. But despite severe ammunition shortages, officials said they had concluded that the Ukrainian military would not completely collapse on the front lines.
Other U.S. officials do not believe Russia has the ability to make significant advances before May 9, a day when Russia typically displays military power. That would require a massive troop buildup that U.S. officials have never seen before.
Still, analysts inside and outside the U.S. government say it probably won't be until the summer at best, or the end of the year at worst, that Ukraine will be able to stabilize the front with a new injection of aid.
Officials interviewed for this article spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military and intelligence assessments and operational details.
U.S. and European officials described the effort to send arms to Ukraine as a modest but steady trickle of aid from allies over the past six months.
Some of the new weapons started arriving even before the announcement. British defense officials say some of the estimated $620 million in support announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak on April 23 – the UK's largest single military funding injection to date – will be released several weeks ago. He said he had started moving.
However, British officials described this as an “absolute priority” and it could be weeks before additional shipments of long-range Stormshadow missiles arrive. The official declined to be more specific, citing security concerns, and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive delivery process.
U.S. and other Western officials agreed that artillery, air defense interceptors and other munitions are Ukraine's most pressing needs. They are also among the weapons that can be shipped more quickly, being flown by military planes to warehouses, packaged in easy-to-conceal pallets and sent across borders by train or truck.
The pace picked up after Congress approved the aid at Rzeszow Jasionka Airport in southeastern Poland, about 80 miles from the Ukrainian border, defense officials said.
Delivery could be particularly quick if the ammunition is already stockpiled in Central and Eastern Europe, where the United States and other allies are stockpiling it.
It could take up to several days for logistics experts at a U.S. military base in Wiesbaden, Germany, to coordinate the delivery of the most urgently needed weapons, officials said.
Combat vehicles, boats, sophisticated artillery, missile launchers, and air defense systems are much more difficult and time-consuming to transport. One reason for this is that their large size often requires transport by sea or by heavily guarded trains.
One U.S. official said most of the heavy weapons financed by the new U.S. aid, and even some of the ammunition, will be shipped from the U.S. and likely won't be delivered until the summer or even later. Ta. A U.S. official also spoke on condition of anonymity.
Complicating matters is that not all promised weapons are immediately available.
U.S. officials are trying to sort out what supplies they can provide to Ukraine without depleting combat-ready NATO forces, including units using Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and Humvee personnel carriers that were part of the U.S. military. He pointed out that it takes time. package. Other weapons are also in short supply around the world, such as 155mm artillery shells, which Ukraine desperately needs.
And the Ukrainian military requires training in the use of some weapons before they can be transferred, such as Germany's third donation of the Patriot system. Announced on April 13th.
On Monday, about 70 Ukrainian soldiers will begin six weeks of patriot training at an air base in eastern Germany. Colonel Jan-Henrik Suchold, head of the Luftwaffe's ground-based air and missile defense division, said the move was faster than the six-to-nine-month course normally experienced by the Luftwaffe.
“You can't just hand out a weapon system like Patriot without training people how to use it,” Scord said in an interview Thursday.
Once the training is complete, it typically takes about two days for the German military to truck the huge missile launchers, radars and other components to logistics hubs in Poland and hand them over to Ukrainian authorities to cross the border.
The newly pledged Patriot systems are expected to arrive in Ukraine by late June at the earliest. The delivery could coincide with shipments of F-16 fighter jets, another major weapons system that Ukraine has long requested. Ukraine has been seeking supplies of fighter jets almost since the war began in February 2022, but deliveries are not expected until this summer, with only a small number initially.
As Ukraine struggles to hold on to its territory, U.S. officials believe Russia will continue its offensive and impose its current advantage before all Western reinforcements arrive.
“I don't think the Russians intended to attack much now, but they have achieved tactical successes in several places and are rushing to take advantage of the influx of new weapons before they reach the front lines and make a difference. It's very likely.” Ralph F. Goff is a former senior CIA official who served in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union and recently visited Ukraine.
He warned that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu's threat last week to step up attacks on Western weapons distribution centers and storage facilities in Ukraine should be taken seriously.
This week, soldiers from multiple front-line Ukrainian brigades expressed great relief that more Western weapons were arriving, but they were still waiting to see vital artillery shells and other equipment needed for day-to-day combat. He said no.
It remains to be seen how much Russia will be able to exploit its current advantages before supplies from the West arrive. Securing the entire Donbass region alone remains a formidable challenge for Moscow, and the battle for major cities under Ukrainian control is likely to be long and bloody.
But Western leaders and defense officials are almost unanimous that Ukraine is facing a particularly difficult period in the devastating arc of the two-year war, when arms deliveries are urgently needed. I agree that it is.
“Is there a further threat? There is,” Mr Sunak said in Poland, announcing fresh British aid on April 23.
“Don't be complacent,” Sunak warned.
helen cooper and Nastya Kuznietsova contributed reporting.