2023-11-17 11:10:31
Faced with a Russian army which is accumulating missiles for winter attacks, Ukraine is seeing, because of the war between Israel and Hamas, its shell supplies drop dangerously, President Volodymyr Zelensky regretted Thursday. Receiving a group of media, the Ukrainian head of state admitted that the fighting in the Gaza Strip had resulted in a slowdown in deliveries of artillery ammunition, crucial for his army.
“In the Middle East, what do you think they started buying first? The (shells of) caliber 155. Our supplies have diminished,” he said. Israel, which enjoys military support from the United States, has relentlessly bombed the Gaza Strip since Hamas fighters massacred hundreds of civilians in an unprecedented assault in early October.
“It’s not like the United States said: we’re not giving anything to Ukraine. No ! We have serious, very powerful relations,” assured Volodymyr Zelensky. “It’s normal, everyone is fighting to survive. I’m not saying it’s a positive thing, but it’s life and we have to defend what’s ours. Today we have problems with 155 mm caliber artillery shells,” he lamented.
“Empty warehouses”
Around the world “now the warehouses are empty or there is a legal minimum that this or that particular state cannot give you,” he explained. “And that’s not enough.” This problem is all the more serious because on the other side of the front line, Russian forces are stockpiling missiles in anticipation of massive attacks against Ukrainian infrastructure this winter. “I think they’re stockpiling (missiles), but they don’t have many more missiles than before. Otherwise, they would have already started bombing,” believes the Ukrainian president.
His country expects further attacks on its energy network, like last winter, when millions of Ukrainians were left without heat or electricity in freezing temperatures. “I think we are better prepared for winter than before. But I don’t think Russia will use fewer weapons. The winter will be difficult.”
Faced with this danger, Western countries, which have supported the Ukrainian military effort since the first days of the Russian invasion, are multiplying reassuring declarations, even if voices are sometimes raised to demand a reduction in this support.
The two armies at an impasse
Thus the new head of British diplomacy, David Cameron, visiting Kiev for his first international trip, promised Thursday that London would continue to help Ukraine “as long as it takes”.
“Russia thinks (…) that the West will end up focusing its attention elsewhere” than on Ukraine, “there is nothing further from the truth,” insisted David Cameron, whose country is the second largest aid donor military to Ukraine, with 4.6 billion pounds (5.3 billion euros) promised to date.
The front has been virtually frozen for a year, despite the launch of a Ukrainian counter-offensive in June. On the ground, the head of the Ukrainian army, Valery Zaluzhny, admitted in early November that the two armies were currently “at an impasse” on the ground.
Kiev troops, however, recently managed to establish positions on the left bank of the Dnieper River in the part of the Kherson region occupied by the Russian army. A breakthrough in this sector would be a significant success. But Kremlin forces are not to be outdone, bombing in the south and attacking in the east.
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