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Q&A – How Is the US Supplying Ukraine w/additional Military Equipment?
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Bottom Line: The options are increasingly limited, to your point. I’ll break it down in a moment, but first – here’s a look at what’s specifically included in the latest $800 million appropriation announced by President Biden on back of Ukraine President Zelenski’s address to Congress asking for additional assistance. The most recent package includes...
- Medical equipment
- 3 Patrol Boats
- 4 Aerial radar systems
- 4 Mortar radar systems
- 5 Helicopters
- 70 All-terrain vehicles
- 100 grenade launchers
- 100 drones
- 400 machine guns
- 400 shotguns
- 800 anti-aircraft systems
- 1,000 handguns
- 2,600 anti-tank missiles
- 25,000 sets of Body armor & tactical gear
- 1 million grenades and mortar rounds
- 40 million rounds of ammunition
And a partridge in a pear tree. It gives you an idea of how far $800 mil in military equipment will go. Alright, so to the crux of your question... How are we going to get this equipment to the Ukrainian military? Well, hopefully there’s time to. I’ll explain some of the more imminent threats to Ukraine’s ability to sustain a defense in a moment. Currently there are two ways for us to send equipment into the war zone directly to the Ukrainian military. One via water and the other land. It’s unclear, and will remain undisclosed for security reasons, what the exact course of action will be with what equipment specifically – however we know what must happen with water equipment and we know what must occur with land-based equipment. As noted, there are 3 patrol boats which are part of this allocation. The water in question is the Black Sea which borders Ukraine to the south. The US has military operations in multiple countries which border the Black Sea in close proximity to Ukraine. Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base and Romania’s Mihail air base- which is directly on the Black Sea. It’s almost certain that’s the point where any water-based support will be provided. In fact, on February 11th – just prior to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine – the United States dramatically increased its presence at that base. There are military strategists in my family, I’m not one of them. This is to say I’ll leave it at that thought as I have my own questions about how effectual three patrol boats will be given Russia’s seizure of the Ukrainian Southern border.
The land options are more straight forward. While Russia controls eastern, northern and southern territories in Ukraine – the western supply line which is derived from Poland's border remains intact. It’s also where the heaviest US presence in the region currently exists. It’s both possible and likely this is how the bulk of the equipment is provided to Ukraine’s military. The broader challenge, and I’d suspect this is part of what you’re thinking, is that the capitol – Kyiv, is currently surrounded and under seize by the Russian military.
Now that we’re over three weeks into the Russian war in Ukraine its somewhat easy from our perspective to get used to the daily news of sad atrocities committed on innocents by the Russian military along with the latest Zelenski news. The problem is, as impressive as the Ukrainian resistance has been, they can’t sustain the current level of conflict and have been constantly losing ground to Russian forces. The Russian convoy which began to surround Kyiv a couple of weeks ago has been used to slowly squeeze Kyiv. There’s been a series of airstrikes by Russian fighters softening up Ukrainian forces in the region backed up by infantry attacks on the ground. The biggest tell of how close Russia is to the Capitol came yesterday when word of Russian ground strikes within 1.5 miles of President Zelenski’s residence were reported. This has been why Zelenski has been insistent on air support, either through a no-fly zone or by allowing Ukrainian fighters access to the Polish Migs which President Biden vetoed. If Ukraine had any air defenses left, they’d be using them to defend the Capitol. The Ukrainians have shown an ability to keep Russia somewhat at bay on the ground with the equipment provided thus far - but it’s hard to see how they can win the war with Russia flying with near impunity in the sky.
One of the other dynamics and questions I’ve been asked about with the recently pledged equipment is whether it could fall into enemy hands. At some point that might be possible, but there remains value from a NATO perspective, that even if Ukraine were to eventually fall – Russian forces would be weakened to the point where they couldn’t sustain further advances beyond Ukraine. For that reason, any equipment we provide that’s used to weaken Russia’s military offensive is of value. We should pray that by Monday, when we’re talking about the latest that’s happened in Ukraine, they remain sovereign.