Desperate Ukraine tells US ‘bureaucracy’ there is no reason not to supply vital weapons and ammunition
The monument to Taras Shevchenko is seen near a residential building destroyed by Russian military shelling in Borodyanka, Kyiv Region, north-central Ukraine.
Hennadii Minchenko | Nurphoto | beautiful pictures
WASHINGTON – A Ukrainian delegation warned American officials in Washington this week that security assistance packages will not arrive quickly enough in the besieged country, a call that comes amid a growing regional security crisis. West claims that The Kremlin will soon intensify its military campaign.
Over the past week, a delegation of Ukrainian civil society advocates, military veterans and former government officials met with 45 lawmakers, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, officials from the Departments of Defense and Defense and the National Security Council at the White House.
“It was the 44th day of the war we were supposed to lose,” said Daria Kaleniuk, who runs the Ukraine Action Center Against Corruption, a national organization that supports Ukraine’s parliament and prosecutor’s office. on the third day.
“What we need now is to arm our military and territorial defense units so we can stop more graves in the backyards of innocent people,” she said on Thursday. Six.
Kaleniuk added that US lawmakers and Biden administration officials outlined a number of reasons why certain weapons systems could not be delivered, citing logistical issues. , lack of inventory and bureaucratic constraints.
“The 6-year-old boy who is visiting his mother’s grave in the backyard doesn’t want to hear about the bureaucracy as an excuse not to deliver weapons to Ukraine,” said Kaleniuk.
“This is an extraordinary situation where extraordinary measures must be taken. Raise your bureaucracy, dismantle it now. The President of the United States has great power, Congress has the power to do so. very powerful. We know it can happen,” she added.
In the courtyard of their home, Vlad Tanyuk, 6, stands near the grave of his mother Ira Tanyuk, who died of starvation and war stress, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 4 year 2022.
Rodrigo Abd | AP
Earlier this week, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also asked NATO allies to catalyze the implementation of their weapons commitments.
“Either you help us now, and I’m talking about days, not weeks, or your help will come too late,” Kuleba told reporters at NATO headquarters on April 7. Kuleba told reporters at NATO headquarters on April 7.
“I have no doubt that Ukraine will have the weapons it needs to fight. The question is the timeline. This discussion is not about the list of weapons. The discussion is about the timeline of when they will be. We get them and this is very important,” he said, adding “people are dying today, the attack is happening today.”
Asked about Kuleba’s comments, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken both downplayed concerns that the allies were withholding weapons that Ukraine had explicitly requested.
“They are coming up with new systems that they think will be useful and effective,” said Blinken from NATO headquarters.
“We’re bringing our expertise to the table, especially the Pentagon, to help determine what actually works, which we think might work. What the Ukrainians will be willing to use as soon as they get it.” and what we actually have access to and can access to them. real-time,” he said, adding that the US is urgently working to bring appropriate weapons to Ukraine.
Blinken’s remarks echo those of US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the US Army Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley. Austin and Milley told lawmakers last week that some of the weapons systems on Ukraine’s wish list require months of training to operate.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) meets with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium April 6, 2022.
Evelyn Hockstein | AFP | beautiful pictures
“Our point of view is to give Ukraine what they need, what they ask for,” explains Olena Tregub, former director of international assistance at Ukraine’s Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.
“We need attack drones, long-range and medium-range strike capabilities because as we sit here with you, the Russians are moving huge columns, massive forces inwards,” Tregub said. southeastern Ukraine”.
Recent Western intelligence reports estimate that Russian forces will soon concentrate their military power in eastern and southern Ukraine after weeks of ground offensive in the capital Kyiv stalled.
Over the past six weeks, Russian forces on the ground in Ukraine have faced a series of logistical problems on the battlefield, including reports of fuel and food shortages as well as frostbite.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House on April 4: “When Russia started this war, their initial goal was to take the capital Kyiv, replace the Zelensky government, and take power. control most, if not all of Ukraine.”
Sullivan said that American officials believe the Kremlin is now rethinking its goals in the war.
A senior US Defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to share new details from the Pentagon, said that Russian troops that were once near Kyiv are now being supplied with additional personnel in Belarus.
The official said the Pentagon believes these troops will soon be redeployed to the war in Ukraine. When asked where the troops were likely to go, the official said the Pentagon believes the majority of them will move to the Donbas region, which has been in conflict since 2014.
A woman walks in front of destroyed buildings in the town of Borodianka on April 6, 2022, where the Russian troops’ retreat last week left clues of the battle that took place to hold the town, just miles away. which is 50 km (30 miles) northwest of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
Genya Savilov | AFP | beautiful pictures
“We need to protect our skies,” said Maria Berlinska, a former Ukrainian soldier who fought in the conflict in the Donbas. She asked US lawmakers during a roundtable in Washington D.C. about “serious weapons,” including medium-range surface-to-air missile systems, jets, tanks and armored vehicles. .
“We’re running out of ammunition. If you don’t have ammunition, you can’t do anything,” she said, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war could spill over the border with Ukraine.
“It is naive to think that if Putin takes Ukraine, he will stop,” said Berlinska, who trains Ukrainian military volunteers in aerial reconnaissance.
“If we don’t win this war, it will be on NATO territory because Putin won’t stop. He has bigger plans and he has to stop in Ukraine,” she warned.
Ukrainian soldiers walk next to destroyed Russian tanks and armored vehicles, during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in Bucha, in the Kyiv region, Ukraine, April 6, 2022.
Alkis Konstannidis | Reuters
Since the invasion of Moscow on February 24, the Biden administration has deployed more than 100,000 US troops to NATO member countries and authorized $1.7 billion in security assistance.
In addition, the NATO alliance has more than 140 warships and 130 aircraft on high alert. Meanwhile, NATO has repeatedly warned Putin that an attack on one NATO member state would be seen as an attack on all, triggering the bloc’s cornerstone Article 5.
Ukraine, which joined NATO in 2002, borders four NATO allies: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. Poland currently has the bulk of its troops from the 30-member coalition and has so far made up the bulk of the refugees fleeing Putin’s war.
“I think we have proved to the world that we are not going to surrender because we know that if we surrender there will be concentration camps. Putin doesn’t even hide what he will do. with Ukrainians,” said the Center’s Kaleniuk Anti-Corruption Action.
“It was a genocide, the obliteration of an entire nation, and I’m not exaggerating,” she added.
The United Nations has confirmed 1,793 civilians have been killed and 2,439 injured in Ukraine since Russia invaded its former Soviet neighbor on February 24.
