“Empty of military equipment warehouses”: how NATO recognized the lack of weapons for supplies to Kyiv

The military depots of the NATO countries are emptying because of aid to Kyiv, said the Polish ambassador to the bloc, Tomasz Shatkovsky, on the air of Polish Radio.

Thus, he reacted to the journalist's words that "the desire, at least of some countries of the alliance, to provide military support to Ukraine is weakening."

“On the one hand, we are dealing with a certain fatigue of public opinion.

But public opinion was a decisive factor for the political turn in terms of support for Ukraine.

This is the first factor.

The second factor is also the devastation of military equipment and weapons depots.

Many countries are facing the next dilemma, so to speak: will we maintain a minimum combat capability or will we continue to transfer equipment to Ukraine, ”Shatkovsky said.

According to him, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg "goes very far in his statements or appeals."

“After all, he claims that in some cases it is more important for our security to transfer equipment to Ukraine than to maintain a certain minimum stock of military equipment, according to the proposal of the North Atlantic Alliance,” the Polish ambassador emphasized.

Recall, Stoltenberg told Welt am Sonntag that residents of Western countries incur significant costs due to military and financial assistance provided to Ukraine.

Rising food and electricity prices "means hard times" for many households in Europe, he said.

However, the Secretary General, despite this, urged "to support Ukraine", to provide it with military assistance.

"Fundamental unpreparedness"

As the American newspaper The New York Times reported on November 26, citing NATO representatives, it is increasingly difficult for the North Atlantic Alliance and the United States to provide the Kyiv regime with weapons while maintaining a sufficient level of their arsenals.

The reason, as the newspaper notes, is the “fundamental unpreparedness” of the West for large-scale hostilities in Europe.

As the NYT clarifies, the United States has only a limited stock of the types of weapons that Kyiv needs, in particular 155-mm artillery shells, which will take at least four years to ramp up production, guided missiles, launchers, howitzers, Javelin anti-tank systems and Stinger MANPADS.

According to The New York Times, the entire state of the bloc handed over $40 billion worth of weapons to the Ukrainian authorities - the same amount France is laying in its defense budget.

However, as the publication states, already a quarter of the members of the alliance are not able to help Kyiv in any way.

As the NYT journalists explained, the conflict in Ukraine is quickly eating up the modest stocks of artillery, anti-aircraft systems and ammunition of the European “dwarf armies”.

“From 20 to 30% of NATO countries have already run out of steam (in terms of supporting the Kiev regime.

),” stated an unnamed official in NATO, whose words are quoted by the newspaper.

Only 10% of the states of the North Atlantic Alliance are able to provide support to Ukraine.

In particular, we are talking about France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. 

As the British newspaper The Guardian notes, the pace of assistance by NATO countries in the form of "billion dollar funding" and the supply of weapons systems is "slowing down."

“Stocks of missiles for (air defense systems.

) Stinger, S-300, NASAMS, HAWK and Starstreak are running out.

Deliveries of more sophisticated air defense systems, for example, American Patriot and German Iris-T, are limited due to problems with their production and training (staff.

),” the newspaper writes.

At the same time, representatives of the US Congress are concerned about the threat of a shortage of weapons for deliveries to Taiwan due to large-scale military assistance transferred to Ukraine, reports The Wall Street Journal, citing sources.

As specified, the conflict in Europe will complicate the plan to send weapons to Taipei in the amount of about $ 19 billion. The publication states that problems with providing assistance to Taiwan are already observed.

In particular, the United States has not yet supplied it with 208 Javelin anti-tank systems and 215 Stinger anti-aircraft missile systems.

• Ukrainian military with the Stinger complex

• AP

• © Efrem Lukatsky

Serious deficit

As Vladimir Shapovalov, deputy director of the Institute of History and Politics of Moscow State Pedagogical University, noted, indeed, a significant part of NATO countries are no longer able to send weapons to Ukraine properly and in the requested quantities to counter Russia.

“The fact is that the Russian Federation regularly and quite effectively destroys a significant part of the weapons of NATO countries that are facing a serious shortage of weapons,” Shapovalov said in a commentary to RT.

A similar position is shared by military expert Ivan Konovalov.

According to him, the West is already "saying with one voice" that their arsenals are empty.

“And the capacities of the military industry, which were seriously reduced in the years after the end of the Cold War, now simply cannot cope with the demands of Kyiv, which shakes everyone and says:“ Give, give, give.

Moreover, no one really wants to fulfill these requests.

But as long as there is Washington, of course, everyone obeys his instructions.

Although the same United States is also trying to calculate its strength and understand that even the capacity of the American military-industrial complex is not enough to cover the needs of Kyiv, ”the analyst said in an interview with RT.

According to Shapovalov, in the countries of the North Atlantic Alliance there is also an extremely high degree of fatigue from the Ukrainian topic and from the demands to help Kyiv.

“In the NATO states, especially in Europe, they understand that the crisis that the bloc countries are facing is largely man-made and is associated with hostile actions against Russia.

For example, in the EU, a large number of people are annoyed that a huge amount of funds goes to help Kyiv, and not to support its own population.

More and more actively people take to the streets in European cities, protesting against the established policy of their own governments in the economic and social spheres, ”the expert said.

At the same time, Shapovalov listed several ways how the countries of the alliance can try to solve the issue of the shortage of weapons.

“The first is an increase in funding for the military-industrial complex, primarily American.

This means that even more serious money will be spent on expanding the production of weapons.

It is impossible to do this all at once: at present, the capacities of the military-industrial complex do not allow expanding the production of the necessary types of weapons.

The second way is to buy weapons outside of NATO, for example, in South Korea, to be sent to Ukraine.

But this is also fraught with quite serious problems, since there are not so many countries that have sufficient arsenals of weapons and are ready to share them, ”the analyst said.

In addition, as Shapovalov emphasized, NATO intends to supply Ukraine with weapons to the detriment of its national armies, which will be deprived of the minimum amount of weapons provided for by the standards of the bloc.

“It is important for the alliance and Washington to inflict maximum damage on Russia, and they will throw new batches of weapons into the furnace of war, including to the detriment of their own armed forces.

This is the essence of proxy warfare.

The degree of protection of the NATO countries themselves with such a careless and inadequate policy is rapidly decreasing.

The states of the block are not able to fully protect their borders, ”the expert believes.

• Pentagon

• Gettyimages.ru

• © Digital Vision.

At the same time, the Secretary General of the alliance calls on NATO countries to ignore the interests of their own citizens in order to continue supporting Kyiv, Shapovalov stated.

“And he is not alone in this.

Many Western statesmen act in the same way, who, in fact, directly declare that the interests of Kyiv and the continuation of the confrontation with Russia are more important for them than the well-being and interests of their citizens, ”the analyst believes.

As Konovalov recalled, the approach of Western officials was formulated not so long ago by German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock.

“She did not hesitate to say that she did not care about the opinion of the German voters and would do what the Ukrainian leadership demands.

And this is the position of almost all the leaders of European states, since they are non-subjective.

They do the will of Washington.

In the White House, they are told to fully submit to the demands of Ukraine, and European officials do this without looking back at the needs of the Europeans, ”the expert concluded.