Ukrainian troops and armored vehicles roll through the recently recaptured town of Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, on April 6. | IVOR PRICKETT \/ THE NEW YORK TIMES<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nSimilar conversations are taking place with other allies that have Soviet-era weapons and ammunition, the officials said. The Americans say they are also speaking several times a day with their Ukrainian counterparts about what Ukraine wants and needs, and what Western countries think they can best provide.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeatedly expresses gratitude for the aid but wants more, sooner. He admitted to being fed up with listing the same set of requirements over and over again to different national interlocutors, telling The Atlantic in Kyiv: \u201cWhen some leaders ask me what weapons I need, I need a moment to calm myself, because I already told them the week before. It\u2019s Groundhog Day. I feel like Bill Murray.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are also supply issues with Western weapons, like the older Stinger anti-aircraft missile or the Javelin anti-tank missile.<\/p>\n
The Pentagon has urged manufacturers to ramp up production. So far, some 7,000 Javelins have been given to Ukraine, about a third of the total American inventory, which will probably take three or four years to replace, wrote Mark F. Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Pentagon met with leaders of eight large military contractors, like Raytheon Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., to discuss how to overcome any supply problems \u2013 both to replenish American weapons stocks that have been drawn down to help Ukraine and to keep Kyiv in the fight. The two companies together make the Javelin, and Raytheon makes the Stinger.<\/p>\n
The United States alone has spent or allocated some $2.6 billion worth of such materiel since the war began Feb. 24, and the European Union has provided \u20ac1.5 billion ($1.6 billion). But there is no prospect of U.S. or NATO troops going to the aid of Ukraine, officials say. The West is providing the weapons and intelligence \u2014 and cheerleading from behind.<\/p>\n
The known list of what has been provided already is long, and there is little doubt that supplies from NATO countries \u2014 and the training of Ukrainian forces after Russia seized Crimea in 2014, not to mention Ukraine\u2019s tenacity and adaptability \u2014 have surprised the Russians, badly damaged their morale and extended the war.<\/p>\n
In the months leading up to the war and afterward, the United States and its allies have sent Ukraine 25,000 anti-aircraft weapons and 60,000 anti-tank weapons, including 10,000 provided by Washington, Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress last week.<\/p>\n
The United States has also provided more than 50 million rounds of ammunition, 7,000 small arms, 75,000 sets of body armor and helmets, and night-vision goggles, encrypted radios, armored trucks and personnel carriers, largely drawn from pre-positioned U.S. military stockpiles, much of it in Europe, according to the latest public list from the Pentagon.<\/p>\n
Since the invasion, the Pentagon has cranked up its vast logistical and transportation network. Within four to six days after the White House approves a transfer of weapons from American military stockpiles, the Pentagon has been able to load the materiel onto cargo planes and fly it to about half a dozen staging bases in countries near Ukraine, chiefly Poland and Romania.<\/p>\n
From there, U.S. officials say, the weapons and equipment are loaded onto hundreds of trucks and shipped into western Ukraine using a variety of overland routes. John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesperson, said it takes about 24 to 48 hours for the weapons to make their way from the staging areas into the hands of Ukrainian troops.<\/p>\n
\u201cEight to 10 flights a day are coming into the region, not just from the United States, but from other nations as well,\u201d Kirby said. \u201cThat stuff isn\u2019t sitting around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite repeated threats to do so, the Russians have rarely tried to stop this flow of Western materiel into Ukraine. Pentagon officials say the Russians have been busy fighting in other parts of the country and fear Ukraine\u2019s air defenses. \u201cThat flow still continues,\u201d Kirby said.<\/p>\n
Britain, which has been more public about its contributions in the post-Brexit period, has supplied about $588 million of materiel, including anti-tank and anti-ship missiles and long-range artillery.<\/p>\n
Training the Ukrainians on new equipment in the middle of a war is a challenge, though. About a dozen Ukrainian soldiers were already training in the United States, and the Pentagon has taught them to use modern armed drones, like the 700 or so Switchblade drones that Washington is now providing.<\/p>\n
Military officials call the weapon, which is carried in a backpack, the \u201ckamikaze drone,\u201d because it can be flown directly at a tank or a group of troops and is destroyed when it hits the target and explodes.<\/p>\n
Bigger armed drones, like American-made Predators or Reapers, would be difficult for Ukrainians to fly and would be easily destroyed by Russian fighter planes. But Pentagon officials said the small, portable kamikaze drones could prove more cost-effective and elusive against Russian armored convoys.<\/p>\n
After the White House announced the latest $800 million tranche of weapons for Ukraine last week, Kirby said that American soldiers would train Ukrainian forces in neighboring countries to use some of the newer, more sophisticated equipment Washington is providing, like radar systems, as well as the 155-millimeter howitzers and 11 Mi-17 helicopters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re aware of the clock, and we know time is not our friend,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared in\u00a0The New York Times.<\/a>\u00a0\u00a9 2022 The New York Times Company<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ukrainian service members unpack Javelin anti-tank missiles, delivered by plane as part of the U.S. military support package for Ukraine, in Kyiv on Feb. 10. | REUTERS BY\u00a0STEVEN ERLANGER,\u00a0ERIC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[153],"class_list":["post-15243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-room","tag-153"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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