Western weaponry pouring into Ukraine helped blunt Russia’s initial offensive and seems certain to play a central role in the approaching battle for Ukraine’s contested Donbas region
FILE - In this image provided by the U.S. Air Force, Airmen and civilians from the 436th Aerial Port Squadron palletize ammunition, weapons and other equipment bound for Ukraine during a foreign military sales mission at Dover Air Force Base, Del., on Jan. 21, 2022. Western weaponry pouring into Ukraine helped blunt Russia's initial offensive and seems certain to play a central role in the approaching battle for Ukraine's contested Donbas region.
These armaments have helped an under-gunned Ukrainian military defy predictions that it would be quickly overrun by Russia. They explain in part why Vladimir Putin’s army gave up, at least for now, its attempt to capture Kyiv, the capital, and has narrowed its focus to battling for eastern and southern Ukraine.
“It’s not as easy to stop this assistance flow as it might seem,” said Stephen Biddle, a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University. “Things like ammunition and shoulder-fired missiles can be transported in trucks that look just like any other commercial truck. And the trucks carrying the munitions the Russians want to interdict are just a small part of a much larger flow of goods and commerce moving around in Poland and Ukraine and across the border.
In mid-March, a Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said arms shipments would be targeted. On Monday the Russians said they destroyed four S-300 surface-to-air missile launchers that had been given to Ukraine by an unspecified European country. Slovakia, a NATO member that shares a border with Ukraine, donated just such a system last week but denied it had been destroyed. On Tuesday the Russian Ministry of Defense said long-range missiles were used to hit two Ukrainian ammo depots.
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