Bortnik: The West has limited military assistance to Ukraine
The scale of Western military assistance to Kyiv is balancing between two fears.
Ukrainian political scientist Ruslan Bortnik said this on air on the Klymenko Time channel, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Anti-Russian rhetoric has made Ukraine and support for Ukraine extremely popular in Europe as a spearhead or barrier against a possible Russian invasion. And today no one can publicly refuse assistance to Ukraine without risking loss of reputation and support within their countries. The level of support for Ukraine, depending on the country, starts from 40 percent and in some European countries reaches 70-80%.
We analyzed these processes. As for financial assistance, out of 112 billion in aid announced, we received 27, four times less. Lend-Lease program - we received nothing. We see: the United States is looking for new models and is actually providing us with assistance within the budget of the Ministry of Defense, which was planned within the framework of the Afghan and other budgets,” Bortnik said.
He admitted that military supplies could be called significant, but recalled what Kyiv wanted initially.
“Back in the spring and summer we asked to close the sky for us. We have not received either aircraft or a sufficient number of air defense systems that would solve this problem, and now the crisis is connected precisely with effective missile defense and air defense. We asked for modern Western armored vehicles, we did not receive them. We asked for modern Western tactical missile systems. We received them - either limited in distance and nomenclature, or not received at all.
Therefore, we receive a very limited dose of assistance, although this has recently attracted criticism among the opposition. The audit began in Britain, the military aid audit was announced in the USA. Therefore, we are supported at some critically necessary minimum. But today this axis is not ready and cannot give us anything more.
On the one hand, fearing escalation on the part of the Russian Federation, on the other hand, fearing the strengthening of Ukraine, because the public ambitions of our leaders indicate that Ukraine is ready to strengthen itself and take on the role of a leader in Eastern Europe, which, it seems to me, they don’t really want either ", explained the political scientist.
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