Even by Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s standards, the Ukrainian president’s high-speed trip around Europe’s principal capitals was successful. A trip to Berlin extracted a commitment to supply €2.7bn more arms, Paris offered more troop training and light tanks, and London stumped up pilot training and long-range drones.
The ongoing supply of western weapons is what gives Kyiv its best hope of kicking out the Russian invaders, a point underlined by Moscow’s overnight bombing of Kyiv. Eighteen out of 18 missiles apparently aimed at US-made Patriot air defence systems were knocked out and casualties appear to be minimal.
It is not certain how Ukraine shot back but, with supplies of missiles for its local S-300 and Buk systems running short, it is likely to be western equipment, whether US-Norwegian NASAMS, a Franco-Italian SAMP-T, Germany’s IRIS-T or the two Patriot systems from the US and Germany that began arriving in the country in mid-April.
But the question remains: is Ukraine getting enough arms to have a chance to win the war decisively? A partial answer will come whenever Ukraine launches its already anticipated counterattack, although wisely, Zelenskiy was saying “we really need some more time” as he met Britain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, at Chequers on Monday.
Some of the latest European gifts are for use now. Most notable are the cache of British Storm Shadow missiles, announced last week, just before Zelenskiy’s tour. They most likely number a few dozen, whose range (likely to be over 300km) makes anywhere in Russian-occupied Ukraine a target. But most of the latest promises are for later this year.
That means, in military terms, the deeper meaning of Zelenskiy’s tour was that whatever has been promised by the west may not yet be enough – and that it is necessary to secure a pipeline of future supply from Europe throughout 2023, in case the initial phase of the counterstrike underwhelms or misfires.
Germany’s promise of a gift of €2.7bn worth of weapons essentially matches the UK’s existing commitment to provide £2.3bn this year. It reconfirms the Zeitenwende (times-turning) foreign policy announced by Chancellor Olaf Scholz shortly after the start of the invasion, and Zelenskiy’s presence in Berlin shows that after months of initial frustration with the slow pace of arms delivery, relations are now positive.
More interesting, though, was the quiet emphasis on the need for Ukraine to secure new fighter jets in the UK and France. Absent on this trip was Zelenskiy’s showmanship, or public diplomacy. In February, on a previous trip to the UK, the Ukrainian leader asked for “wings for freedom” in an address at Westminster, handing the Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, a pilot’s helmet to underline the point.
That was accompanied by an unlikely demand for European Typhoon jets – never thought ideal for Ukraine’s needs – which has long been quietly dropped. This time, Zelenskiy talked in a more low-key way at the Chequers country retreat about building a “jets coalition,” meaning an effort to gently persuade the White House to green-light the gift of US-made F-16s.
Sunak immediately pronounced himself on board, committing the UK to help with “training of pilots and all the logistics” to build up a cadre of pilots ready to fly an F-16. Overnight, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who had seen Zelenskiy between Scholz and Sunak, said his country was also involved: “We have opened the door to training pilots, and this with several other European countries.”
Scholz, however, dodged the question when it came up at a press conference in Berlin, and, at least for now, the US shows no sign of changing its stance. But Nato’s next annual summit is due in mid-July (and a G7 meeting is coming at the end of the week), which may help concentrate the minds of the reluctant. It is not obvious that Ukraine’s small surviving air force can survive a long war.
European military backing will not alone be enough for Kyiv to defeat the Russian invaders, given that the largest single contributor, by some distance, is the US. Washington has pledged $36.9bn in arms since the full invasion began in February 2022, including a further $1.2bn a week ago.
But at a time when the re-emergence of Donald Trump reminds Kyiv that full-throated US support cannot be guaranteed after the next presidential election, shoring up key European allies ahead of the early summer round of international summits makes good strategic sense.
