***They will lose with or without the aid.***
Turns out it’s better to have Iran and North Korea for allies in a war than the USA and western Europe. In the last year NK has delivered 2 million 152mm shells to Russia, while Europe has sent only 300,000 155mm shells to Ukraine.
Just as the UK announced new sanctions, the news came out that Iran has now sent 400 ballistic missiles to Russia. Those missiles can pinpoint targets 435 miles away showing an increasing military cooperation between these two heavily sanctioned countries.
Meanwhile, the Ukraine’s $60 billion munitions package promised by the USA over 7 months ago is still no closer to being approved.
***The Ukrainian people are tired of being cannon fodder in a proxy war.***
That’s Kremlin propaganda. Russia INVADED Ukraine because they wanted their territory. Russia = Bad guys. Ukraine = Good guys.
Why is Putin putting the blame for the Crocus Concert attack on to Ukraine when ISIS have already claimed responsibility for it? You cannot trust Putin as far as you can throw him!
This is not just an Israeli conundrum. The fighting in Gaza, despite its unique characteristics, is merely the latest illustration of the dizzying pace of ammunition consumption in modern warfare. This is certainly true of the asymmetric fight against terrorist armies: in 2016, the US is estimated to have dropped more than 24,000 bombs on Syria and Iraq as part of the campaign against ISIS. Yet conventional ground warfare has become an ammunition sinkhole as well. The Russia-Ukraine war is the most prominent example. Less than a year into Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russians were forced to open 40-year-old ammunition depots and turn to Iran and North Korea for help to maintain the furious pace of artillery and rocket fire.
The Ukrainians, by contrast, were heavily reliant from the start on the supply of weapons from the West, especially the United States. Some numbers by way of illustration: so far, the US has supplied Ukraine with more than 2 million 155 mm artillery shells, 1.8 million 25 mm rounds, and 400 million rifle rounds and grenades. This comes in addition to advanced weapons systems, such as long-range rockets and anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles, which are all vital to repelling the Russian army.
At this time, all eyes in Kyiv (and indeed in Jerusalem) are on Washington, where a political stalemate in Congress has held up the decision on a desperately needed $60 billion aid package for months. Yet even absent political constraints, the most generous American policy imaginable would fall short of providing all of Ukraine’s needs. In December 2022, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines revealed that Ukraine consumed five years of production of Javelin anti-aircraft missiles in the first 10 months of the war.
Nor is the gap between supply and demand limited to advanced weaponry. Artillery is a prime example. In the spring of 2023, the Ukrainian army’s rate of consumption of 155 mm shells stood at 6,000 to 8,000 per day, whereas American production output was about 15,000 per month. Since then, the US has ramped up production significantly, but even so, it is not expected to exceed 100,000 shells per month by October 2024. As it turns out, the artillery forces of the United States and its allies are almost completely dependent on the output of a single factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
These constraints explain why, in January 2023, the administration asked Israel to transfer 300,000 artillery shells from American stockpiles located in Israel to Ukraine. Of course, Israel herself now needs those stocks. Not to mention Tamir interceptors for Iron Dome, which are also manufactured in small quantities in the US, bombs, and spare parts for aircraft, tank shells, and so on. One does not need a security clearance to conclude that Israel’s military dependence on the United States is nearly absolute.