Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election on November 5 has raised keen interest in what kind of military and financial support Ukraine can expect from the European Union.
President Trump pressured U.S. lawmakers last year to delay a $61.4 billion military aid package for Ukraine and claimed he would end the war in Ukraine within a day if he won.
Ukraine also expressed concern that arms deliveries promised by President Joe Biden’s administration would be fulfilled before the transfer of power on January 20.
Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said the United States delivered 83% of the munitions, 67% of essential air defenses and 60% of fires capabilities delivered to Ukraine under the defense package from April to mid-October.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday he does not expect Trump’s inauguration to change the U.S. position on Ukraine.
However, President Trump demanded that EU member states, which are also NATO members, increase their defense spending to 3% of gross domestic product (GDP), and signaled US support by threatening to make Russia do whatever it wants if they refuse. NATO, and potentially Ukraine, will operate conditionally during his presidency.
This has raised questions about the extent of military autonomy in Europe and the political will to continue supporting Ukraine with or without a supportive administration in Washington.
EU external relations chief Josep Borrell told European Pravda that the EU would deliver one million artillery shells by the end of the year. The shells were promised in the spring of 2023 for delivery last spring.
“We’re almost done. We have already delivered more than 980,000 shells and will soon deliver more than 1 million shells,” Borrell said.
The Czech plan, purchased from around the world, would provide an additional 500,000 shells by the end of the year, he said.
Borrell also said that the EU’s production capacity has now increased to up to 1 million shells per year.
The EU has spent 122 billion euros ($129 billion) to support Ukraine after a full-scale Russian invasion in 2022.
If U.S. aid is cut off, the European Union could hand over $300 billion in Russian assets under EU control to Ukraine, and calls to do so have grown in the past week.
The EU has so far agreed to only give Ukraine profits from those assets, fearing retaliatory repercussions for the bloc’s currency.
Ukraine received a first round of funding of 400 million euros ($425 million). At a meeting of EU defense policy chiefs in Brussels on Tuesday, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Serkhy Boyev called on the EU to expedite some of the 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) in profits from frozen Russian assets promised this year for investment in Ukraine’s defence. I requested it. Industrial base.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also broke ranks with the cautious American policy of not using Western weapons to strike deep inside Russia and ordered Ukraine to supply Taurus missiles with a range of 500 km (310 miles) capable of hitting Russian airfields. It brought new pressure.
“I believe that my contribution to preventing escalation from occurring has invariably been right. And I want to make it clear that the countries that are doing the most in Europe to ensure that Ukraine is not left alone and that it receives support are also the countries that must ensure that escalation does not occur,” Scholz told the Bundestag, or lower house of the German parliament, on Wednesday. .
The strike airfield would deprive Russia of the ability to launch large glide bombs, one of its most effective weapons against Ukrainian front lines.
Gloomy situation on the front line
Ukraine’s southern defense spokesman Vladislav Voloshin said Saturday that Russia was stepping up its use of glide bombs in the south.
“Last October, Russian forces used about 500 guided aerial bombs in the southern direction, especially against Ukrainian positions and populated areas near the battle lines,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Sunday morning that Russia had dropped 800 glide bombs across the front last week, a rate he first reported in the first week of October, putting him at more than 3,000 glide bombs in a month. It works.
Additionally, Russia typically launches about 1,600 kamikaze drones and 80 missiles into Ukraine each week, Zelenskyy said.
The Ukrainian military says Russia’s strategy is to continue bombing civilian areas of Kharkiv with glide bombs to demoralize residents. A Ukrainian counteroffensive on Russia’s Kursk region in August led to a lull in the shelling.
“In the past few weeks, the enemy has again started using guided aerial bombs,” said Volodymyr Degyarev, spokesman for the Ukrainian National Guard. “Shelling occurs mainly in the evening or at night, mainly in cities, against civilian infrastructure, but also during the day.”
Ukrainian defenders continued to come under extreme pressure across the front lines last week, with the Russian hammer falling hardest on the frontline cities of Kurahove and Pokrovsk, west of the city of Donetsk.
Ukraine’s Chief of Staff reported 125 combat clashes on Monday, mostly in the Pokrovsk direction, while Kurakhove remains in a “difficult situation.”
Zelenskyy sent reinforcements in two directions, but by Tuesday Russian troops appeared to be advancing along Zaporizkyi Street, northeast of Kurakhove.
One of Ukraine’s biggest concerns has been Russia’s ability to absorb the loss of troops and armor in this war.
Colonel Vadym Mysnyk, spokesman for Ukraine’s Siversk Army, told the telethon that Russian attacks typically begin with armor, followed by waves of infantry every 10 to 15 minutes, a tactic that accounts for the high attrition rate of Russian troops. It was said that it caused.
The Russian offensive has certainly been bloody, with Russian casualties reaching 9,800 last week, according to Oleksandr Pavlyuk, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces. This confirms the daily casualty figure observed since June of approximately 1,400.
But reinforcements kept coming, allowing the Ukrainians to counterattack at Kursk, crushing the Russians and preventing them from joining the front lines against the beleaguered defenders.
“Our forces are holding back a fairly large Russian force,” Zelenskyy said in an evening speech, noting that 50,000 Russian troops were detained in Kursk Bay. They have been deployed in different directions of Russian attacks on our territory.”
propaganda war
Donald Trump’s first U.S. cabinet nomination would not have inspired Ukraine’s confidence in the continuation of U.S. support.
On Wednesday, President Trump nominated former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence.
“This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if the Biden administration/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns about Ukraine joining NATO. This means US/NATO forces will enter right into the Russian border,” Gabbard posted on X at the time of the war. It started.
This is in line with Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s assertion on Wednesday that the war could end the moment Western support for Ukraine is cut off.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated Russia’s position, describing a war launched by Russia under the leadership of the West to crush Russia.
“The West’s call to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, the country with the largest nuclear arsenal, shows the extreme adventurism of Western politicians,” he said at the Valdai Debate Club on November 7.
“The amount of sanctions and punitive measures applied to our country has no equal in history. “Our opponents thought that Russia would suffer such a crushing blow that it would never recover and would no longer be one of the key elements of international life.”
“Russian propaganda has come out falsely claiming, ‘We are continuing the war by supporting Ukraine,’” Borrell said in an interview. “’If you love peace, you must stop supporting Ukraine.’
“To counter this propaganda, we need to explain to people that peace is not just the end of war. A story about peace through the surrender of Ukraine, or installing a puppet government in Kiev like in Belarus, then we will see the collapse of Ukrainian society and Russian troops on the Polish border. “This goes against not only our values but also our interests.”
