Ukraine’s defence minister says delayed shipments of arms lead to losses of troops and territory.
Speaking at the “Ukraine. Year 2024” forum in Kyiv on Sunday, Rustan Umerov stressed that each delayed aid shipment meant Ukrainian troop losses, and underscored Russia’s superior military might.
It has been two years since Russia invaded Ukraine and while commemorations to mark the second anniversary brought expressions of continued support, new bilateral security agreements and new aid commitments from Ukraine’s Western allies, Umerov said that they still needed to deliver on their commitments if Kyiv was to have any chance of holding out against Moscow.
“We look to the enemy: Their economy is almost $2 trillion, they use up to 15 percent official and nonofficial budget [funds] for the war, which constitutes over $100bn annually. So basically whenever a commitment doesn’t come on time, we lose people, we lose territory,” he said.
In recent weeks, fighting has intensified on parts of the front line. On Sunday, Russian shelling and rocket strikes continued to pummel Ukraine’s south and east, as local Ukrainian officials reported that at least two civilians were killed and eight others were wounded in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson provinces.
Moscow and Kyiv also continued to trade nightly drone attacks, with Ukraine’s air defences shooting down 16 of 18 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched overnight by Moscow and a Russian drone on Sunday morning struck an unspecified facility in Ukraine’s western Khmelnytskyi region, the regional military administration reported without giving details.
Russian troops also appeared to be pressing on west of Avdiivka, the strategic city whose capture this month handed Moscow a significant victory.
Umerov and the Ukrainian military’s commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskii, toured front-line combat posts earlier Sunday amid a worsening ammunition shortage and dogged Russian attacks in the east.
They heard from front-line troops and “thoroughly analysed” the battlefield situation on their visit, Syrskii said in a Telegram update. He did not specify where exactly he and Umerov went but said that “the situation is difficult” for Ukrainian troops and “needs constant control” along many stretches of the front.
Europe has admitted it will fall far short of a plan to deliver more than one million artillery shells to Ukraine by March, instead hoping to complete the shipments by the end of the year.
Umerov highlighted that such delays put Ukraine at a further disadvantage “in the mathematics of war” against Russia, which the West has said is increasingly building a war economy.
Kyiv has also been weakened by the blocking of a vital $60bn US aid package amid political wrangling in the US Congress.
US President Joe Biden said the hold-ups directly contributed to Ukraine being forced to withdraw from Avdiivka.
On Sunday, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said he was “deeply convinced that the US will not abandon Ukraine in terms of financial, military and armed support”.
Meanwhile at the forum in Kyiv, besides highlighting issues in military deliveries, Umerov insisted that Ukrainian forces were doing “everything that’s possible, and also what’s impossible, to secure a breakthrough” this year.
The defence minister said that a “strong” military strategy is already in place for the coming months, but did not disclose details.