Hennadii Minchenko | Nurphoto | Getty Images WASHINGTON – A Ukrainian delegation warned U.S. officials in Washington this week that security aid packages were not reaching the besieged country quickly enough, a call amid Western security claims that the Kremlin would soon step up its military presence. Last week, a delegation of Ukrainian civil society supporters, military veterans and former government officials met with 45 lawmakers, including Parliament Speaker Nancy Pelosi, State and Defense Ministry officials and the White House. “This is the 44th day of the war that we are supposed to lose on the third day,” said Daria Kalenyuk, director of the Center for Action against Corruption in Ukraine, a national organization that assists the Ukrainian parliament and prosecutor. “What we need now is to arm our army and our territorial defense units so that we can prevent more graves in the yards of innocent people,” he said on Friday. Kaleniuk added that U.S. lawmakers and Biden government officials have outlined a number of reasons why some weapons systems could not be delivered, citing logistical issues, stock shortages and bureaucratic restrictions. “A six-year-old boy visiting his mother’s grave in his backyard does not want to hear about bureaucracy as an excuse for not handing over weapons to Ukraine,” Kalenyuk said. “This is an extraordinary situation where emergency measures must be taken. Raise your bureaucracy, lift it now. The president of the United States has enormous power, Congress has enormous power. We know it is possible,” he added. In the yard of their house, 6-year-old Vlad Tanyuk stands near the grave of his mother Ira Tanyuk, who died of starvation and stress due to the war, on the outskirts of Kiev, Ukraine, on Monday, April 4, 2022. Rodrigo Abd | AP Earlier in the week, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba also called on NATO allies to catalyze the fulfillment of their arms commitments. “Either you are helping us now, and I am talking about days, not weeks, or your help will come too late,” Kuleba told reporters at NATO headquarters on April 7. “I have no doubt that Ukraine will have the necessary weapons to fight. The question is the timetable. This debate is not about the list of weapons. The debate is about when we will have them and that is crucial,” he said. , adding “people are dying today, the attack is unfolding today”. Asked about Kulebba’s comments, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken downplayed concerns that the Allies were holding weapons explicitly requested by Ukraine. “They envision new systems that they believe would be useful and effective,” said Blinken of NATO. “We have our own know-how, especially the Pentagon, to determine what we really think could be effective. What the Ukrainians will be ready to use once they receive it, and what we really have access to and what we can really approach.” time, “he said, adding that the United States is working hard to bring the right weapons to Ukraine. Blinken’s comments echo those of US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Millie. Austin and Millie told lawmakers last week that some weapon systems on Ukraine’s wish list require months of training to work. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) meets with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, April 6, 2022. Evelyn Hawkstein AFP | Getty Images “Our task is to give Ukraine what it needs, what it is asking for,” said Olena Tregub, Ukraine’s former director of international aid at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. “We need impact drones, long-range and medium-range impact capabilities because as we sit here with you the Russians are moving huge columns, huge forces in the south-east of Ukraine,” Tregub said. Western intelligence reports recently estimated that Russian forces would soon concentrate their military power in eastern and southern Ukraine after weeks of halted ground forces in the capital, Kiev. Over the past six weeks, Russian ground forces in Ukraine have faced a number of logistical problems on the battlefield, including reports of fuel and food shortages, as well as frostbite. “When Russia started this war, its initial goals were to occupy the capital of Kiev, to replace the Zelensky government, and to take control of much if not all of Ukraine,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters. White House on April 4th. Sullivan said U.S. officials believed the Kremlin was now reviewing its war goal. A senior US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of reports from the Pentagon, said Russian troops just near Kyiv were currently being supplied with additional manpower in Belarus. The official said the Pentagon believes these troops will soon be deployed back to the fight in Ukraine. Asked where the troops were likely to go, the official said the Pentagon believed the majority would move to the Donbass area, the site of an ongoing conflict since 2014. A woman walks in front of destroyed buildings in the city of Borodianka on April 6, 2022, where the Russian retreat last week left evidence of the battle for control of the city, just 50 kilometers (30 miles) northwest of the Ukrainian capital Kiev. Genya Savilov | AFP | Getty Images “We need protection for our skies,” said Maria Berliska, a Ukrainian military veteran who fought in the Donbas conflict. He called on US lawmakers during a series of meetings in Washington, DC, to use “serious weapons”, including medium-range surface-to-air missiles, jets, tanks and armored vehicles. “We are almost done with the ammunition. If you do not have ammunition, there is nothing you can do about it,” he said, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war would probably spill over into Ukraine. “It is very naive to believe that if Putin conquers Ukraine it will stop,” added Berliska, who trains Ukrainian military volunteers in aerial reconnaissance. “If we do not win this war, then it will be held on NATO soil because Putin will not stop. He has bigger plans and he must be stopped in Ukraine,” he warned. Ukrainian soldiers walk next to damaged Russian tanks and armored vehicles, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Bucha, in the Kiev region, Ukraine, April 6, 2022. Alkis Konstantinidis Reuters Since the Moscow invasion on February 24, the Biden government has deployed more than 100,000 US troops to NATO countries and has approved $ 1.7 billion in security assistance. In addition, the NATO alliance has prepared more than 140 warships as well as 130 aircraft on high alert. NATO, meanwhile, has repeatedly warned Putin that an attack on a NATO member state would be seen as an attack on everyone, triggering the group’s cornerstone in Article 5. Ukraine, which has been seeking NATO membership since 2002, borders four NATO allies: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. Poland currently hosts the majority of the 30-member alliance’s troops and has so far taken on the lion’s share of refugees fleeing Putin’s war. “I think we have shown the world that we are not going to surrender because we know that if we surrender there will be concentration camps. Putin is not even hiding what he is going to do with the Ukrainians,” said Kaleniuk of the Center. “It is a genocide, the annihilation of an entire nation and I am not exaggerating,” he added. The United Nations has confirmed 1,793 civilian deaths and 2,439 injuries in Ukraine since Russia invaded its former Soviet neighbor on February 24.
