Rat u Ukrajini

Ukraine war ‘over’ unless EU boosts military support, says top diplomat
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/19/ukraine-war-over-unless-eu-boosts-military-support-says-top-diplomat

The war with Ukraine will be over unless the EU finds a way in weeks to speed up the provision of ammunition to Ukraine, Josep Borrell, the EU foreign affairs chief, warned on the final day of the Munich security conference.

He said a special meeting of EU defence ministers slated for 8-9 March will provide a chance for countries to offer ammunition from their existing stocks, adding it is taking up to 10 months for European armies to order and receive a single bullet.

“We are in urgent war mode,” he said. “This shortage of ammunition has to be solved quickly; it is a matter of weeks.” He said if it was not the war would be over.

Borrell will also table plans at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday to use the existing €3.6bn (£3.2bn) European peace facility for the EU to procure ammunition jointly on the model of the procurement of vaccines during the Covid crisis, an idea first proposed by the Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas.

Borrell said the Estonian idea would work in the medium term, but he believes the urgency of the shortages is such that it requires EU countries to draw on existing stocks. “We have to use what member states have,” he said.

“Much more has to be done and much quicker. There is still a lot to be done. We have to increase and accelerate our military support. It currently takes almost 10 months for the European army to buy a bullet for the calibre of 155mm, almost one year, and almost three years to buy an air-to-air missile. This is not in accordance with the war situation in which we live.”

Kallas, speaking at the same event, said Russia was in a wartime mode, producing ammunition across three shifts, adding there needed to be a similar war footing in Europe. She claimed defence industry executives had told her they had no orders from the EU.

Borrell said the absence of ammunition was because “we forgot about classical wars – we were only engaged with expeditionary forces and technological Blitzkrieg.”

He said some European countries, such as Poland, had doubled their defence budgets, while France was boosting its defence spending by 40%, from €39bn to €59bn.

He pointed out that defence remained a national state competence in the EU, but said if the EU increased defence spending with “everyone in its own corner, we will increase our duplications and not fill in our loopholes”.

He said the war in Ukraine may act as an awakening or incentive to break taboos by increasing defence interoperability across Europe but added that experience showed this would not change overnight, and bewailed a culture of delays that he said weakened the coordinating role of the European Defence Agency.

“We have taken too much time to make critical decisions such as providing battle tanks,” he said, “when everybody knows that in order to win a classical war, a classical war with manoeuvres of heavy arms, you need battle tanks. You will not win this war without this kind of arms.”

Mór Thököly wrote:

for fear that backing from Ukraine’s European neighbors could be finite.

Poljske?

Del Cap wrote:

Mór Thököly wrote:

Poljske?

pa mogućnost podrške jeste "finite" a mislim da se misli na EU zemlje u celini, ne na komšije u užem smislu.

In addition, the White House advised Zelenskyy to prepare for the offensive now, while there are no problems with help from the United States and Europe. Washington is concerned that EU support may become limited due to new Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

The word on the street in Kyiv is: Biden is here.

— John Sweeney (@johnsweeneyroar) February 20, 2023

In #Kyiv, traffic was blocked in the center and large traffic jams were noticed. Rumor has it that this is because of the cortege of an important foreign delegation. pic.twitter.com/FfDo4Ut9sR

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) February 20, 2023

MNE wrote:super sad samo fali da neka ruska raketa poklopi tu kolonu pod pratnjom ko god da je došao

Biden and Zelensky strolling through Kyiv. Incredible! pic.twitter.com/aXzDV9WdjY

— DKastle (@Dean_Kastel) February 20, 2023

Mór Thököly wrote:"Ja z Kijiva"

fikret selimbašić wrote:

Mór Thököly wrote:"Ja z Kijiva"

Mór Thököly wrote:

fikret selimbašić wrote:

Folklor im je mnogo slicniji nasem, i to bas srpskom, nego bilo kakav ruski.

Cousin Billy wrote:Bajden je u Kijevu