2023-12-02 12:28:08
At the annual conference of the European Defense Agency (EDA) held in Brussels, the EU noted that its war economy remained insufficient to help Ukraine face Russia.
To help Ukraine, Europe is doing what it can, but is it enough? EU defense industry, military and political leaders gathered in Brussels on Thursday to address this crucial subject at the annual conference of the European Defense Agency (EDA). And the observation is clear: it is still insufficient. Faced with the war economy launched in Russia, deliveries to Ukraine are not keeping pace, deplores kyiv, which fears a brutal offensive this winter with energy infrastructure as its main targets.
For a year, arms deliveries from Europe have been weakening and the desire for support is no longer unanimously shared. In 2022, the 27 EU countries increased their military spending on average by 6% to 240 billion euros to rearm and support kyiv. These budgets represented on average 1.5% of the EU’s GDP when the objective demanded by NATO is at least 2%.
In detail, only six countries increased their budget by more than 10%. Before ratifying its NATO membership, Sweden achieved a record increase of 30%. For France, for the last year of the 2019-2022 Military Programming Law, the increase was only 0.7%.
Russia in war economy
On the other hand, Russia has tripled its defense budget in just one year. Its military budget is already at 30% of its GDP and in 2024, it will increase by another 67%. Moscow has even decided to take 200 million euros from defense R&D to produce more tanks and ammunition, notes the European Defense Agency (EDA). According to kyiv, the Russians fire around 60,000 shells every day.
In addition, Russia benefits from increasingly strong aid from its Iranian and North Korean allies. In September, Pyongyang provided “more than a thousand containers” of weapons and ammunition, according to Washington, which fears that in exchange Moscow will help this ally modernize its armies with combat planes and anti-aircraft defense batteries.
With Iran, trade could be even more important. Tehran recently confirmed an agreement to obtain from Moscow the means to modernize its air forces with Sukhoi Su-35 Flanker-Es, Mil Mi-28 attack helicopters and Yak-130 training aircraft. The counterpart would be kamikaze drones (Shahed and Mohajer) used for in-depth offensives. A few days ago, the Russian army launched an offensive on kyiv with 75 Shahed drones in successive waves. The Ukrainian army managed to intercept them at the cost of a drastic weakening of its ammunition stock.
According to Volodymir Zelensky, Moscow has already ordered 2,000 drones from Iran. But above all, an agreement between the two countries aims to create a drone factory in Russia which should enter production in early 2024.
Consistency and visibility
Faced with this power, the European Union is doing what it can. It has already supplied 300,000 artillery munitions using its stocks. The EU continues to reaffirm its support, but some countries, notably Hungary, are reluctant to pay more. On Thursday, the President of the European Council Charles Michel proposed using European loans dedicated to defense.
Another problem is the consistency of the weapons sent which are not always compatible with each other. At the EDA meeting, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sharply criticized this cacophony. Ukrainian forces use “more than 200 different weapons systems,” Ukrainian Ambassador to NATO Nataliia Galibarenko recently reported.
Ukraine: the war of “kamikaze drones” – 10/17
For their part, the arms manufacturers agree to produce more, but demand visibility, consistency and contracts. The EU has set up a joint contract financing mechanism to meet Ukrainian demand, but things are not moving fast enough.
The EU has promised to supply one million artillery shells to the Ukrainian army by March, but German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius admits this goal will not be achieved. Ukraine “consumes” around 10,000 drones per month, recalled Ursula von der Leyen, and more than 400,000 mortar shells for the same period, affirmed for his part the Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense, General Ivan Havryliuk.
Putin’s dream is the Ukrainians’ nightmare
To cope, Ukraine will devote 50% of its spending to defense and security in 2024, or 22.1% of GDP. “All our internal resources will be used to resist and defeat the enemy,” Prime Minister Denis Chmygal said.
To ensure that neither Putin’s dream nor the Ukrainians’ nightmare comes true, the United States and the European Union have made announcements in recent days. American Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin notably went to kyiv to announce new aid of 100 million dollars including, among other things, anti-aircraft defense means. To this amount is added an envelope of 1.3 billion from Germany.
Independent initiatives appear. A Czech entrepreneur has launched a crowdfunding operation under the name “Gift for Putin”. This prize pool has already raised 27.5 million dollars (23.1 million euros) from more than 188,000 donors, for the purchase of a tank, a rocket launcher, a mine clearance system, drones and munitions. The project now aims to purchase a $4 million Black Hawk helicopter. A drop in the ocean that is still worth taking for a country at war since February 24, 2022 against one of the greatest military powers on the planet.
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