The president of Ukraine Volodymir Zelensky returns to call for a strengthening of aid from United States and fromEuropean Union. He wants to raise the level of his country’s defense. Translated: he wants defense from heaven. And to make his message more compelling he now draws a direct parallel with Israel and the attack suffered by Israel a few days agoIran. “The Ukrainian skies and those of our neighbors they deserve the same security – underlines Zelensky – And I thank all those who perceive our need for security as a need for security The same for everyonebecause all lives have the same value. Our ability to defend ourselves from Russian terror and the weapons in the hands of our soldiers is something that works not only for Ukraine, but for all of you. And I thank each of you who understand this and act accordingly.” Zelensky referred to the attack on Chernihiv that he carried out 17 dead and at least 60 injured. “This is what happens every day. It reflects our current main need: the need for air defense,” she reiterated. “There Russia – the Ukrainian president continues – he does not give up on blackmail radiation and, in particular, continues to play brutally with the safety of nuclear power plant Of Zaporizhzhia: We do not exclude that the infrastructures of other nuclear power plants and distribution networks are also threatened by Russian terror. This can be stopped only by air defensefrom specific systems such as PatriotIris-T, Samp-T, Nasams. Systems that you have. They are needed in Ukraine right now, to prevent Putin from relying on terrorist methods.”
The Ukrainian president spoke to the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg to repeat the message he’s been repeating for weeks: time is running outi missiles from the anti-aircraft I am sold out and meanwhile the Russians are pounding the eastern front. The Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kalla launched an appeal to those countries, European and otherwise, that still have anti-aircraft batteries in their warehouses at “send them to Ukraine as soon as possible”, since “put head in the sand” will not make the European continent safer. “Our timid response in Ukraine not only strengthened the Russia, these conflicts around the world are connected by a thread: we are like in the 1930s,” he warned. EU leaders, according to the draft conclusions of a new summit in Brussels, underline “the need to give an air defense urgently to Ukraine and to accelerate and intensify the provision of all necessary military assistance, including artillery ammunition and missiles” and invite the Council, in particular at its next meeting on 22 April in Luxembourg) to ensure “the necessary follow-up”.
The High Representative Joseph Borrell is in contact with the counterparts of the 27, the G7 in Capri is studying the dossier (the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was invited, as well as Stoltenberg) and, at Kiev’s request, will meet on Friday NATO-Ukraine Council at the level of the starters in the defense. There Germania he has written to dozens of countries, including the Gulf Arab Stateswhich will be in Luxembourg for cooperation council, to ask multiple air defense systems for Ukraine. “We invite you to take inventory of your arsenals and consider what might be transferred, entire systems or parts thereof, permanently or for a limited period,” they write Annalena Baerbock e Boris Pistorius in the letter. The initiative, called “Immediate Action on Air Defense,” will primarily seek to procure more American Patriot systems as they have proven to be the most effective against Russian ballistic missiles. It is worth underlining once again that there is not even the shadow of a timid attempt to try a diplomatic route.
Kiev, for its part, has already done the mapping: the Ramstein coalition would have available 100 Patriot batteries (the bulk is in America) e Ukraine he claims 7 for himself. A sacrifice deemed minimal. Berlin responded, promising an extra battery. Now it would be up to Washington, where something is finally moving. Republicans have introduced a bill to Congress that would unblock the 61 billion in military aid for Kiev, bogged down by months of internal fighting. The vote will take place on Saturday. Without the USA it is now clear that the war could end with a collapse for Ukraine.
So, while the world is apprehensive about the risk that the escalation in the Middle East will flare up into something even more dangerous for the rest of the world, at this rate, and with the morale of the troops increasingly weakened by the “gloomy predictions“, the Ukrainian front could collapse “la next summer when Russia, with greater numerical weight and the willingness to accept enormous losses, launches its planned offensive,” several senior Kiev officials report to Politico. From him, today an investigation by the Bbc, Vladimir Putin he would be willing to adopt a strategy nicknamed by English public TV as “the meat grinder”: that is, to focus on the willingness to send an ever-increasing number of soldiers to the front line to try to wear down the Ukrainian forces and expose their artillery. With the result, it is always the calculation of Bbcthat the Russia at the moment it has already exceeded “the threshold of 50 thousand casualties”, with an acceleration of 25% more in the second year of the invasion. “The overall budget is 8 times higher than Moscow’s official admission – underlines the British broadcaster -. And the number is likely to be much higher.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed state secrecy over the “special military operation“, just as Kiev does not advertise the number of its fallen: the last official figure dates back to February, when Zelensky spoke of 31 thousand soldiers killed.