At a Ukrainian Defense Liaison Group meeting at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany this month, one of the “great demands” from Ukrainians was the SA-10 and SA-11 to repel Russian drones and aircraft. It was an air defense system upgrade, Hecker said. .
The U.S. does not manufacture or use missiles, so the responsibility for supplying them to Kyiv lies with European allies.
One of the things unlikely to arrive in Ukraine anytime soon is the US-made F-16 fighter jet. Hecker said he wouldn’t arrive for two to three years after the political decision was made, due to training and training. Logistics problem. The general said he wouldn’t consider sending F-16s, but that “people are starting to think more long-term” about how to equip Ukraine for war, which could last for years instead of months. said to be high. POLITICO reported last week that officials were in early discussions about whether to send the jet to Ukraine with its Patriot missile battery.
But the aid all depends on decisions made by politicians in Washington and across the European capitals, leading to delays in some of the weapons Ukrainians have claimed for months to be vital to their survival. There is increasing pressure on Germany in particular to allow third countries to send German-made Leopard tanks and artillery systems to Ukraine, but Berlin has so far refused.
Similar fears exist within the White House, refusing to send long-range missiles for high-mobility artillery rocket systems out of fear that Ukraine will start hitting targets inside Russia. It can travel about 50 miles, as opposed to the 180-mile range of the missile claimed by .
These voluntary restrictions on aid are frustrating Kyiv and others who want to equip Ukraine more quickly and fully to attack Russian forces more forcefully. At least for now. , “Ukraine has what it takes to survive, fight and try to defend a sovereign state without turning this into World War III,” Hecker said.
The general admitted that the United States was providing Ukraine with “time-sensitive” information, but claimed that the Americans were not choosing their targets.
Specifically, the US passed on information about the locations of Russian supply bases and logistics hubs within Ukraine, Hecker said. “We told them where some of this equipment was, but it was up to them to target it or not,” he said.
In the early days of the war, Ukrainian forces struggled to hit these targets behind their front lines and out of artillery range. “But they got his HIMARS,” he said.
