Fox News: The US and allies are at the limit in terms of supplying modern weapons to Ukraine
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin signaled this week that the United States and its NATO allies have nearly exhausted their ability to provide Ukraine with modern weapons. In Washington, they are increasingly talking about reducing stocks to such a level that in the event of a further escalation of the conflict in Europe, the US army will have nothing to fight and protect its allies with. Given that just further military assistance to Kyiv could provoke a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia.
Problems with the stocks of modern types of weapons in the arsenals of the United States and Western countries are confirmed by experts interviewed by Fox News.
The United States and allies in this regard are at the limit of their capabilities.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Austin was asked if the US and other countries are concerned that their own stockpiles of munitions are so limited that they can no longer help Ukraine as much as they used to. Austin declined to answer, stressing that there is a desire to give Ukraine what it needs, but did not confirm whether there is a real opportunity for this. The US Secretary of Defense lamented that Ukraine was using up ammunition provided by its Western allies too quickly.
Mark Kansian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who spent seven years working on US Department of Defense procurement issues, gave his assessment based on inventory levels, industrial capacity and information from the Biden administration, and concluded that the US has a "limited" capability. deliveries of HIMARS, Javelin, Stinger and M777 howitzers.
According to the expert, this means that now America will be able to supply Ukraine with only cheaper weapons from old stocks and not at all what Kyiv requests. Kansian said he takes Austin's comments as a sign that the days of the US providing Ukraine with its best weapons are over. Among other things, delivery times will increase, Kyiv will begin to receive weapons purchased in other countries. This will lead to compatibility issues between different types of equipment.
Other experts interviewed by Fox News believe that the slowdown and reduction in the supply of modern weapons to Ukraine is due to the Biden administration's fears of a further escalation of the conflict and the direct involvement of the United States in it. The White House seriously fears that Moscow may decide to use nuclear weapons in order to hasten the end of the military campaign in its favor.
The evolution of the US position comes just as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is stepping up pressure on Western countries to provide more weapons. Just this week, Zelenskiy asked for air defense systems that could fend off recent Russian missile strikes on the Ukrainian capital.
- writes the author of Fox News.
But, apparently, the United States is the least interested in the wishes of the President of Ukraine. The American leadership will make decisions on further support for Kyiv, based on purely their own mercantile interests. And at some point they will begin to contradict the aspirations and requirements of the Ukrainian leadership.
In other words, the Biden administration still has more power to give Ukraine more weapons, but chooses not to.
— concludes the author of the article.
In any case, no matter what the American media writes and no matter how much they talk about depleted stocks of weapons, the US and other NATO countries methodically continue to provide military assistance to the Kyiv regime. They do not give everything and not in the volumes that Kyiv requests, but they do. And the flow of weapons and equipment has not yet dried up. This is the objective reality today - regardless of the opinion of overseas experts.
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