More than a half-dozen countries have provided Ukraine with anti-tank missiles that have become an important component of fighting off a complete Russian takeover.
Russian forces entered Ukraine last Thursday, and they have largely “stalled” in their efforts to capture the capital city of Kyiv, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters Wednesday. However, they’ve had success in Kherson, a southeastern city located in close proximity to Crimea, where Russian forces have been stationed since 2014.
The Ukrainian resistance has exceeded Russia’s expectations and has delayed its advances in many parts of the country, in part due to the significant arms and weaponry provided to them by the international community.
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One of the most important resources Ukraine has received is anti-tank weaponry, which came from Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States (before the invasion), according to the Forum on the Arms Trade, which has documented all pledges for weapons support.
The Russian military has roughly 15,000 armored military vehicles, including tanks, and that’s approximately five times the size of Ukraine’s fleet, according to Nikkei Asia.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov, on the day the invasion commenced, requested as many anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons “as possible” in a YouTube video, and he said that countries should deliver them to Poland, where they can then “transport them across the land and quickly saturate our defense.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reiterated that plea on social media Tuesday: “I emphasized: Ukraine needs additional deliveries of weapons, especially for our Air Force, now.”
The weapons “have helped slow Russian advance,” John Hardie of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told the Washington Examiner, adding that “we’ve seen a lot of destroyed armored vehicles, obviously, the Ukrainians themselves report that they’ve been helpful.”
While the weapons have assisted Ukraine’s resistance efforts, there are logistical concerns about how foreign governments can replenish the stockpile, specifically as Russia gains control of more territory within the neighboring country.
“It’s going to be difficult for the Ukrainians not to run out of the replenished anti-tank missiles and other ammunition before further resupply,” Brent M. Eastwood, the defense and national security editor of 1945, a foreign policy web magazine, told the Washington Examiner. “There are at least a dozen or more countries offering some type of military support.”
“The transportation issue concerns me,” he said, explaining that flying additional supplies would be dangerous because Russian forces possess anti-aircraft systems, adding, “The best thing to do is ship through Poland with a truck convoy that takes a route that skirts under the border of Belarus. This takes time and coordination among NATO allies. Kyiv could be cut off by the time the shipments of arms and ammunition make it there.”
An additional area of concern for Hardie is the possibility that Russia hasn’t begun using its most devastating weapons and that the failure to achieve its goals would push the country to do just that.
Russian forces have reportedly used cluster munitions, which are bombs that release smaller bombs when they hit the ground and explode, and a thermobaric rocket launcher was transported through Ukraine. Such rockets are filled with fuel and chemicals that suck all the oxygen out of the area, including a person’s body.
“We’ve seen some of that,” he explained, but if “they really bring the full brunt of their military might against the capital, that would be really a tragic scenario.”
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President Joe Biden has authorized nearly $1 billion in military assistance over the past year, though it comes nearly a decade after the Obama administration decided against arming Ukraine as they fought off an invasion in Crimea in 2014.
The Trump administration then decided to approve the sale of $47 million worth of Javelin missiles and launchers in December 2017. As a condition of the sale, according to the Washington Post, they were kept in a storage facility far from the front lines of the fighting.
