Ukraine will be able to win the war within the year if the West delivers more weapons, including missiles with a range of more than 100 kilometers, estimated to AFP Mykhaïlo Podoliak, adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, promising that these systems will not be used to attack Russian territory.
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“Only missiles with a range of more than 100 kilometers will allow us to significantly speed up the clearing of territories”, which will lead to the end of the war “either at the end of spring or at the beginning of the summer, either in the summer, or probably in the fall,” Podoliak told AFP in an interview on Wednesday afternoon.
This type of missiles will allow the Ukrainian army to reach the Russian arms depots that Moscow has transferred far from the front in the occupied territories in order to put them out of reach of the systems currently available to the Ukrainian forces, he said. he explains.
The Ukrainians who are already using formidable American HIMARS systems (range of 80 kilometers) and have just received their French equivalent, unitary rocket launchers (LRU) (about 70 kilometers) are calling for American ATACMS missiles, with a range of 300 kilometers .
With longer-range weapons, “we are going to destroy the entire military infrastructure of the Russian army in the occupied territories, including in the Donbass” (eastern Ukraine) and in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, Mr. Podoliak argued.
However, Ukraine will not attack targets on Russian territory once it obtains long-range weapons, he said.
“We will not attack Russia. We are waging an exclusively defensive war,” he stressed, warning that without massive deliveries of increased Western heavy weapons, the war is likely to last for “decades.”
In addition to missiles, Kyiv also needs armored vehicles, in particular “heavy tanks”, such as German Leopards that Ukraine is asking for in Berlin, and cannon artillery.
“France is already delivering light tanks to us. It is very good. But we still want to get 250 to 300 to 350 heavy tanks,” the official detailed.
Kyiv’s priority needs also include more 155mm caliber shells, combat drones capable of carrying out deep attacks on occupied territories and anti-aircraft defenses, including German Cheetah anti-aircraft armor, he said. .
According to him, the Europeans and Americans could soon speed up deliveries, because they “understood” that this is the key to the conflict.
“Our partners have clearly understood today that the transfer of arms to Ukraine in sufficient quantities will make it possible to limit this war to the occupied territories”, he insisted.
In addition, the arrival of new anti-aircraft defense systems, such as the American and German Patriots or the French Crotales, will soon be able to neutralize the threat posed by Russian bombing campaigns against Ukrainian energy installations.
“We will be able to close our skies in the space of a month,” he said, judging that Ukraine will soon be able to shoot down 95% of the missiles fired by Russia, instead of 75% currently.