NATO agrees to bolster Ukraine's air defenses | DW News

when NATO has agreed to strengthen Ukraine's air defenses including sending more Patriot missile systems Ukraine's President Vladimir zalinsky has repeatedly appealed to Western allies for more help more weapons and he's been meeting NATO ministers this week in Brussels now separately Ukraine says that it has shot down a long range Russian bomber for the first time in this war but officials in Moscow say the aircraft crashed in a sparsely populated area because of a malfunction during the combat mission meanwhile Russian forces have been inflicting steady losses on Ukraine allowing them to seize or regain positions in the East after major setbacks in the first year of the war Russia now seems to have the advantage President Vladimir Putin believes his forces have turned the tide in his favor they're slowly seizing more Ukrainian territory and damaging its economy with long range strikes the strategy is always the same you need to show better results than the commanders in the neighboring sectors of a front better than other generals you need to show that somehow your troops are moving forward if you don't show these kind of results or just say that you are holding your positions repelling all Ukrainian attacks and not losing any territory then that is a bad result and you are likely to be replaced for more than a year the front line in eastern Ukraine has barely moved the fiercest fighting is now taking place near the city of aiva Russian forces are also trying to take chiv Yar that's near bahmut which was captured a year ago to do so they are using a simple tactic it's absolutely inhumane brutal and so on but this tactic works it involves pushing through Ukrainian defenses despite heavy casualties it means Relentless attacks by small and mediumsized groups without any serious Maneuvers and without the support of tank units I think they'll continue these attacks because no one sees any other more effective way the Russian army is facing equipment and weapons shortages although the problem is not as serious as on the Ukrainian side many Armament factories in Russia have stepped up production and new ones are being built a good example is the factory in tatarstan which produces drones there was absolutely nothing there before the war even during the first year of the war but since then they've built this plant that produces huge amounts of Shah drones which attack Ukrainian cities almost every day but despite an advantage in resources the Russian war machine is said to be struggling to replace its losses analysts believe that big changes in the conflict are unlikely in the coming months generally speaking the Russian strategy at the moment is to drag out the fire until November with slow advances to show the West that Russia will not pause its offensive that it will advance further in November Russia will see who becomes the next US president and will then begin to plan what it does next until then Russia is expected to continue its long range strikes and frontal assaults with further casualties in Ukrainian cities Enon is own soldiers well I'm joined Now by Kat zis she's with the Norwegian Institute for defense studies it's good to have you with us this evening how sustainable is Russia's meat grinder strategy well Russia faces a number of challenges and weaknesses um in in its Arm Forces and I think long term uh this will be very difficult including also the economic foundation for the Russian uh for the Russian war effort looks quite Bleak with 11% uh decline in GDP expected by IMF in the next 5 years but in the short term this strategy actually um is on Russia's side it helps Russia to uh to uh regenerate the force relatively quickly saturate the Russian the Ukrainian air defenses exhaust ammunition um Russia has an advantage in in personnel as well in Manpower Russia is right now conducting a large scale military modernization program which includes a huge increase also in in the number of personel the objective is 1.5 million we do not know they will be able to to to get that but we see that they still um manage to mobilize uh large uh quantities uh of of personnel which as we see help Russia to push through even if the offensive is still limitted and and considering all of this even if Ukraine gets more help from NATO from the United States is the P of support simply too slow to give ke an advantage obviously and I think that's what would we see at the front and the Russian um advances the struggles on the Ukrainian side um given the the problems in the personal the the uh disproportional um uh disproportions in ammunition in air defenses we see that unfortunately uh the aid is uh way too slow and it is of course a large part of the problem is is that the US Aid has been blocked for such a long time for months now in the US Congress so so Russia and this has allowed Russia to to continue pushing along the front but also to to undermine the critical infrastructure H undermine the functions of the try to undermine the functions of the State uh exhaust the the the civilian population and also attack the Ukrainian industrial capacity so Ukraine also uh has problems to to defend itself I've got about a minute left I want to ask you Ukraine says that it shot down one of Russia's strategic bombers what does that tell you well I think F first of all that that Ukraine if they have air defenses they they are using it very well because the type of the Strategic bomber we so shut down is actually used has been frequently used by Russia to attack Ukraine including uh Ukrainian uh civilian uh population uh this kind of strategic bombers they they carry missiles and and so again this this shows that that uh the critical importance of of strengthening the Ukrainian air defenses okay Kina zis with the Norwegian Institute for defense studies we appreciate your time and your analysis tonight thank you thank you very much Dr Leia vusa is a researcher at the NATO defense College in Brussels their expertise includes Russia and cyber security Dr theusa do you agree with his assessment that Moscow is waiting for the result of the US election before it considers any longer term plans well thank you so much for having me and um I think um I would disagree with this assessment because based on the open source evidence that we see uh Putin is planning major counter offensive in probably early June um we see mobilization of the uh troops uh we see repositioning of the troops um so I for the time being I find it very hard to believe that he would feel constrained and he would want to wait till November uh till the US elections um they're using this window of opportunity to increase and expand their control of the Ukrainian territory now just this morning deaths were reported as a result of Russian strikes on Ukrainian targets but recently moscow's focus seems to have shifted to targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure how Dam in is this for Ukraine well since the beginning of the war there've been about 160 attacks against the Ukrainian critical infrastructure particularly energy sector uh but ukrainians have been successful at um uh defending themselves against these attacks now they experiencing shortages of missiles and the air defenses and they're making hard choices between whether they will be defending critical infrastructure uh for example the recent attack uh out of 11 uh missiles launched by the Russians uh seven were um um like defeated but um four managed to penetrate the um defense um Ukrainian air defenses and this caused a large damage um so uh this is what we're seeing large destruction is due to the shortage uh of the ammunition that ukrainians need to defend their critical infrastructure um uh show that and they will be making hard choices will be forced to make hard choices if the aid does not arrive um as soon as possible now in our report we also heard about new factories that produce large quantities of these Shahed drones is this an attempt by Moscow to overwhelm Ukraine's air defenses so they have to make decisions on what to defend actually yes uh we saw that unfortunately the Russians manag to scale up their drone production faster uh than anticipated and uh what the drones do first of all they reduce the costs they cost the fraction um compared to like missiles um and then also they can engage the civilians in producing those BS for example recently tatarstan um is about to enact or considering uh enacting the laws that would allow miners uh 14 year old and um uh older to be deployed be employed in the production of the drones and other um like in the military defense complex um so at the end of the day uh what the Russians are trying to do they're trying to reduce the costs um of um like carrying on air strikes on the Ukrainian infrastructure and the civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and um yes they are scaling up the production of those drones this is very unfortunate now what weapons or which strategy would you say is most likely to ultimately decide this war well I don't have a crystal ball but u based on what's been working so far and uh the reasons why we see this U uh situation in the theater now um so first of all uh we should uh enhance um we must enhance Ukraine's air defenses uh the Allies have been United with must stay United but at the same time the Allies should deliver on the um uh packages that they pledge to deliver um and then uh in addition to that uh we should continue building Ukraine's resilience to this type of attacks that unfortun we will be seeing more um and um more more than more importantly is um to stay United and continue signaling strong support uh to Ukraine Dr Alesia vinas the soua researcher at the NATO defense College in Brussels thank you very much thank you thanks for having me

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Length: 12min 10sec (730 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2024