Give us weapons! — shout our warriors on the frontlines. Give us weapons — demands our General Staff of the Armed Forces from the country's leadership. Give us weapons — asks the president and our diplomats from the leaders of other countries. And they give. But in such measured amounts that it's just strange. Figuratively speaking — enough so that the "hungry" don't die of hunger, but not enough for them to recover. Is this good or bad? The answer could be half-hearted. It's good because if they hadn’t given anything at all, Ukraine would no longer exist today — it would have been a continuous novorossiya with all the well-known consequences: killings, torture, persecutions, bans on Ukrainians and everything Ukrainian. There would have been a methodical and consistent extermination of the nation, just as the kremlin führer, putler, desired. But with the weapons we have and those we produce on our own, as well as with the weapons provided to us, Ukraine has managed to hold on, resist the aggressor, and defend itself for almost three years now.
Military aid from our allies has a significant role. This aid comes in 15 different categories — from missiles, aviation, armored vehicles, artillery, and firearms to protective and humanitarian equipment. Almost all NATO member countries (except for hungary) have provided and continue to provide military assistance, with the most coming from the USA, Great Britain, Germany, and the Czech Republic. As of February 9, 2023, NATO allies have provided Ukraine with military, humanitarian, and financial aid worth approximately 120 billion USD since the beginning of russia’s full-scale invasion. As of August 2023, it became known that this amount has grown to 150 billion USD, of which 65 billion is military aid, including 29.3 billion from the USA. The European Union in 2022 allocated seven tranches of military aid, each worth 500 million euros. Big thanks to them for this!
But it’s bad that they give us not as much as we ask for, but as much as they want, which is insufficient for a complete defeat of the russian army and its expulsion from Ukraine's territory. Remember in 2022 when Zaluzhny drove the russians out of the Kharkiv region and asked — give me 300 tanks, and I will drive them out of Donetsk — they didn’t give them. They gave them later, a year later, and not even 300, by the time the russians had already recovered and fortified their positions. As they say: "A spoon is useful when it comes at the right time." The same thing happened when the russians were driven out of Kherson.
Why does this happen? Our partners fear putler, his threats to use nuclear weapons. Because that would mean a global catastrophe, the end of civilization. And yet, what a beautiful world we live in, how well life goes on in America, in Europe. Why risk it? It's not their war. They probably think: "Let Ukraine fight, suffer, and endure; they are to blame for this. What do we have to do with it? We're fine." And yet, if you’ve started helping, then help properly because delay is akin to death. A rhetorical question: "What is better — to die immediately or to die slowly?" With this strategy of our partners, Ukraine is doomed to slow death. There is no one in the world who is ready to go to the end for Ukraine. It's long been known — in politics, there are no eternal friends, only eternal interests. Our leaders need to understand this and rely only on their own strength and capabilities, not wander the world with a begging hand asking for weapons.
And where are our weapons? After all, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine emerged with a strong military and technical potential. Over 30 years of independence, under all presidents, it was not strengthened but systematically reduced. Weapons were stolen, sold, destroyed. Where did our missiles go? One could ask Mr. Kuchma, director of the famous "Yuzhmash," and later the president of the country. Where are our weapon depots? One could ask another president — Mr. Poroshenko? Do you remember when six depots exploded? They would have been very useful on the frontline. They say it was russian sabotage. Perhaps. But where were our famed intelligence services, investigations, and the SBU? I understand, with our negligence, one depot was blown up, but couldn’t the rest have been secured with such protection that even a mouse wouldn’t slip through? But no, five more were blown up. It begs the thought that this was done deliberately: the weapons were stolen, sold, and the depots blown up to cover the tracks. One thing is clear — a state crime was committed. Who will answer for it?
These are the affairs of the past. I hope that after the war, these matters will be thoroughly investigated and the guilty will be held accountable. Now, let's return to the present. Ukraine is currently rebuilding its defense industry. In the conditions of war, this is extremely difficult. It is difficult to build when missiles and bombs are flying overhead. But despite this, underground factories are being built, existing productions are being modernized, technologies are being improved, and new developments are being implemented.
Volodymyr Zelensky said: "We have domestic 155-caliber artillery on the battlefield. We have systematic production. This is still not enough for the front, but it is many times more than we had. Today, Ukraine produces even weapons we never had before, and the total amount of equipment being produced 'is tens of times' higher than pre-war figures.
"We produce 'Neptunes', 'Stugnas', 'Korsars'. The number of 'Stugnas' and 'Korsars' we produce — I can’t say exactly, but it's not just tens of times more than before the war, it's just colossal numbers. They are constantly on the frontlines, our military approves of them, and they want even more, but you can’t imagine how much we are building," the president noted.
He also reported that Ukraine began producing NATO-standard weapons that never existed and could not have existed in the country before. In addition to missiles and shells, a large number of drones are also being manufactured in Ukraine.
Ukraine has created several of its own models of strike unmanned surface vessels (USVs, also known as "unmanned fire-ships") and has used them to attack russian military ships and coastal infrastructure.
Author: Myroslav Grekh