The Ukrainian resistance had ammunition for ten days, not one more. She had been trained for the new war at home and in the bases on the European border, this past December and January. British and Canadian instructors, Polish trainers. But the national army still needed weapons when, at dawn on February 24, the invasion began furiously: “I need bullets, not a lift ,” President Volodymyr Zelensky told American diplomats who offered him a way. of salvation after surrender.
The yellow and blue army, flanked by reservists and volunteers, by special units such as Azov, has survived eighteen days so far. The weapons – at least two thousand Stinger anti-aircraft launchers, seventeen thousand anti-tank mortars, North American Javeline and British Nlaws that younger soldiers post on Facebook – have arrived. Operation Porcospino, the supply from the outside, without direct NATO involvement, has so far been successful.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said yesterday on state TV: “Any mobile vehicle that carries rockets will be a legitimate target for us.” He addressed the United States directly. The Kremlin understood that without those exceptional and secret transports from Romania, especially from Poland, it would not have lost ten percent of its contingent and Kiev and the cities of the East would not have been able to resist with this tenacity. Still yesterday, however, Zelensky he relaunched: “Since you’re not giving me new anti-aircraft artillery, I’ll buy it myself.” A few hours and the American president, Joe Biden, has put on the plate another 200 million dollars, which add up to the 350 million already invested and practically all spent: Western weapons can be seen in the Ukrainian trenches and on the roofs of besieged cities. With the last tranche, the S-300 surface-to-air missiles could arrive via Slovakia, to hit the Russian Mig higher in the sky.
Now that the Belarusian Ministry of Defense has denied that his country can enter the war directly by invading from the northern border – on Friday evening the Ukrainian secret services had raised the alarm -, the broadening of perspective by Putin’s army is possible read right into the key of the war supplies to be cut. The destruction of the military airports above and below Lviv, in that of Lutsk there was an ammunition depot, serves to remove support bases of the Ukrainian aviation and to hit the internal landing places in Ukraine of the weapons of fourteen NATO countries (including Italy) . There are thirty airports in the invaded country, and many are potentially operational. Yesterday the Russians also wanted to hit the slopes of Vasilkiv, to the left of Kiev,
At the military airport of Borospyl, east of the capital, from January 22 until the eve of the war cargoes with war goods landed. Antonov aircraft instead departed from the north of Latvia and the Polish military airport of Rzeszów has become the warehouse of Western weapons. The CNN, following US defense sources, has however assured that NATO forces have used to the maximum of its capacity – 17 landings a day – a secret airport “not yet identified by Russian satellites”.
With the war started, the weapons had to enter by land, through the same border crossings used by the refugees: Medika-Shehyni, Krakovets, Hrebenne-Rava Ruska. In order for goods to travel – to Lviv and Kiev, first of all – NATO may have asked expensive private contractors to intervene. And, again, the Russians are convinced that some mortars and rockets have traveled together with humanitarian aid. Certainly, helmets and uniforms for Ukrainian soldiers and fabrics to disguise their tanks left from the civilian palaces of Lviv.