AMONG THE many ways in which the world has changed recently is the willingness of some governments to ship weapons to Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of a sovereign state has shocked other Europeans into breaking old pacifist taboos. Germany, which had long refused to send arms to conflict zones and sent Ukraine a derisory pre-war gift of 5,000 helmets, is now sending anti-tank and surface-to-air missiles. The European Union, an entity with zero troops and one Nobel peace prize, is sending €450m-worth ($499m) of lethal gear. Even tiny Luxembourg is sending jeeps, tents and 100 NLAW anti-tank missiles, one for every 6,000 of its citizens. Western governments do not want to risk a direct conflict with Russia by sending their own troops, but are eager to help Ukraine defend itself. How are these military supplies getting into Ukraine?
Since 2014 many countries have supplied non-lethal military aid to Ukraine. America agreed to supply lethal weapons in 2017. In April 2018 the first delivery, comprising 210 Javelin missiles and 37 launchers, arrived. Before the war started, such supplies could simply be flown to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, where journalists would be invited to watch pallets of bullets being unloaded. Now delivering anything to Ukraine has become much harder. Cargo planes carrying arms would risk being shot down.
However, Ukraine’s friends are keen to help. The first challenge is procurement. The defence industry normally moves slowly, bogged down by annual budgets and contractual wrangling. So the next weapons to reach Ukraine will probably be those that are already approved, ordered, paid for and lying around. America has plenty of surplus kit from Afghanistan, for example, which has yet to find a new mission.
Getting such aid into Ukraine is hazardous. Russia views any arms delivery as “an act of hostility if not an act of actual war”, says one diplomat. Rather than sending kit by air, donors now have to send it by land from NATO territory. Not all NATO members are prepared to take that risk. Hungary’s government refuses, saying that “such deliveries might become targets of hostile military action”. There would be a precedent: during its occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Soviet Union bombed and raided rebel training camps over the border in Pakistan. Russian spies are also thought to have blown up Bulgarian depots full of Ukraine-bound arms in 2015. And some weapons are deemed too hot to handle. On March 1st Bulgaria, Poland and Slovakia backed out of a nascent EU plan to donate old Soviet-made fighter jets to the Ukrainian air force.
Nonetheless, since the fighting started weapons have continued to flow, say Western officials. The details are a closely guarded secret. But one of the main routes is via the Polish-Ukrainian border, where supplies from Germany, America and others are crossing. As women and children flee Ukraine, guns and missiles are entering. Large shipments are hard to disguise and vulnerable to attack as soon as they enter the country. Russian helicopters have been more active near the Polish border, according to some accounts. And there is always a chance of error leading to escalation. If Russian bombs aimed at trucks near the border were to land on the Polish side, it could be seen as an attack on a NATO member, requiring all other NATO members to come to its aid. Countries arming Ukraine “cannot fail to understand the degree of danger” that they are flirting with, says Russia’s foreign ministry. Ukraine’s arms suppliers seem undaunted.
Our recent coverage of the Ukraine crisis can be found here
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