Never had war come so close to NATO: Yavoriv is only 25 kilometers from Poland, a member of the Alliance. About thirty missiles fell on the International Center for Peacekeeping and Security, a Ukrainian military base which also housed foreign instructors, mainly Americans and Canadians. The base is classified as a training center by NATO . It is about 400 square kilometers large, one of the most important in the country.
The confirmation came immediately after the smoke stacks rose from the barracks on Sunday morning, through the mouth of Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov. The governor of the Lviv region Maxim Kozitsky says that the victims are at least 35, with 154 injured.
In Yavoriv, soldiers from Kiev had been training for months, aided by foreigners, in the use of anti-tank rockets supplied by the West. It is no coincidence that the Russian attack came the day after Moscow’s warning: “Arms convoys are a legitimate target for the Russian armed forces,” Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Sergei Ryabkov said on Saturday. And it is no coincidence that Poland was the first country to react to the threat: “If Russia uses chemical weapons in Ukraine, NATO could reconsider its decision not to intervene directly in the conflict,” said President Andrzey Duda in an interview with the BBC.
Until Saturday the west of Ukraine had been substantially spared from Russian bombing. Also yesterday, however, US President Joe Biden announced another $ 200 million in arms aid and military supplies for Kiev.
Ukraine does not have an aviation that can hold its own against Russia’s. The hypothesis of aircraft supplies via Poland was rejected by the Pentagon because it is at “high risk”. Moscow could have interpreted it as a direct attack by NATO, sparking a war against the Alliance. If today Ukraine is able to resist the enemy advance with such determination, it is above all thanks to the anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons supplied by the West. Hitting these supplies for Moscow means blocking the main pillar of Ukrainian defense.