BRUSSELS — Pleas from Ukraine for air defense support, after a barrage of Russian strikes on civilian targets, were met with new pledges from Britain, Spain and France — and more encouraging words from other defense ministers gathered for a two-day NATO meeting at alliance headquarters.
NATO countries offer handful of new pledges amid Ukrainian pleas on air defense
There were no announcements from U.S. officials, other than that the previously pledged advanced antiaircraft systems, called the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS, which should arrive “within the next several weeks.”
Germany, too, referred to a previous pledge. After Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov confirmed the arrival of the first IRIS-T air defense system from Germany this week, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said the other three would follow next year.
The mix-and-match assortment of systems on offer from NATO allies, and the uncertain delivery times, suggested a disconnect between the acute fears voiced by Western leaders of continued Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, and their ability to help protect the country and its citizens, who have already experienced disruptions in electricity service and could be facing a cold, dark winter ahead.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday in a virtual address to the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly that his country has only 10 percent of the air defense hardware it needs.
At NATO, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stressed the resolve of the United States and other allies to get Ukraine the weapons and equipment it needs.
Acknowledging the handful of new offers this week, Austin said in a news conference: “We would encourage the rest of our allies to dig deep and provide additional capability as well.”
But he added the caveat that delivering sophisticated air defense systems is a complicated and time-consuming task: “Some may take weeks or months; others may take years.”
Austin suggested that the war in Ukraine might ultimately mean that NATO countries need to spend more than the current goal of 2 percent of GDP for defense, as countries expand their industrial bases and replace the weapons and equipment sent to Ukraine.
Strengthening NATO’s defenses was on the agenda in Brussels this week. Defense ministers from the 14 NATO allies plus Finland agreed to develop the “European Sky Shield Initiative,” a German-led push to create a European air and missile defense system through joint acquisition of air defense equipment and missiles by European nations.
Such a program would be designed to protect the participating countries, not non-NATO allies like Ukraine.
The meeting of defense ministers was taking place at a difficult and dangerous moment in the Ukraine conflict, as NATO countries and other nations backing Kyiv have grown increasingly alarmed and angry about Russia’s brutal tactics and prospects for a negotiated peace seem almost nonexistent.
The Group of Seven industrialized democracies on Tuesday called for Russia’s full and unconditional withdrawal from occupied Ukrainian territory, and demanded future assurances for Ukraine’s security and reconstruction of the country to be paid for by Russia.
Senior Russia officials, meanwhile, have said their military objectives remain unchanged and have lashed out at the United States and the United Kingdom, accusing them of undermining potential negotiations and directing Kyiv to prolong the war.
A string of battlefield setbacks have Russian forces on the back foot, NATO officials and diplomats say, but there is no sign that Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to back down, and Russia has been taking steps to tighten its grip on occupied areas that it claims to have annexed. The territorial seizures are a violation of international law.
With its stocks of precision ammunition running low, the Russian side has stepped up attacks using longer range Soviet-era munitions, taking aim at Ukrainian infrastructure and civilian targets far from the front line, a senior NATO official said — a sign, some fear, of what’s to come.
Ukraine’s electricity operator, Ukrenergo, said on Thursday that workers had restored power around the country after the missile attacks earlier in the week.
The head of Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, said the electricity supply was “stabilized” but that some restrictions on consumption would still be required.
Kyiv and its allies are worried about continuing Russian strikes on power stations and other critical infrastructure and in a television interview, Kudrytskyi he shared those fears. “This heating season will be very difficult,” he said.
In Brussels, the United States and allies stressed unity on Thursday, but just beneath the surface there are signs of division — and distractions — even within NATO.
On Thursday, while the defense ministers were gathered in Brussels, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country belongs to NATO, met with Putin in Kazakhstan. Erdogan has sought out a role as a negotiator, and helped broker a recent prisoner exchange.
But the Turkish leader does not speak for other allies, and it was unclear what goals he might pursue, given the new clarity of the G-7 — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K., the U.S. and E.U. — in endorsing Zelensky’s definition of a “just peace,” which includes full restoral of Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.
In Brussels on Thursday, British Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace defended Erdogan’s outreach saying that “Nobody should be condemned for trying to talk to Putin.”
“Someone has to talk Putin down from where he has gotten himself,” Wallace said.
In Brussels, NATO officials and diplomats were careful not to say much about the alliance’s nuclear strategy, stressing that it is safer and more effective to say less, not more, about NATO’s nuclear planning and training.
And yet, the day before NATO’s nuclear planning meeting, Macron decided to share his thoughts on French nuclear deterrence, telling French media Wednesday that a ballistic nuclear attack on Ukraine would not yield a French response.
France traditionally cuts its own path in nuclear doctrine and does not participate in NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group, despite being the only nuclear-armed power in the E.U.
NATO’s 30 allies were joined in Brussels this week by Sweden and Finland, which have applied to join the alliance and for the first time were participating in a defense ministerial as “invitees,” giving them broader access to most NATO discussions.
But their membership still hinges on approval from Turkey, which has hinted it might seek to split the Nordic neighbors by ratifying Finland’s application while demanding additional concessions from Sweden.
Source: WP
