Today in Germany, at the Ramstein air base, the US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin participates in the Ukraine Security Consultative Group with the defense ministers and chiefs of staff of NATO countries to discuss the developments of the crisis in Ukraine. But it will above all be an opportunity to take stock of how many and which weapons to send to Kiev, including the so-called “heavy” ones, and to tackle logistical management. While the European sanctions on Russian oil and gas are still slipping.
“We want to see Russia weakened to such a degree that it can no longer do things like invade Ukraine,” Austin said after Sunday’s visit to Kiev with Secretary of State Blinken. The response of the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov was immediate: “There is a real danger of a Third World War”. Blinken and his defense colleague went to Kiev by train and discussed with President Zelensky for three hours, then announced the sending of new military aid worth $ 713 million to Ukraine and 15 other Eastern European countries, as well as that the reopening of the Ukrainian embassy with diplomat Bridget Brink.
Blinken said the US remains open to negotiations, supporting the visits that UN Secretary General Guterres will make today to Moscow and Thursday to Kiev. To negotiate, however, it takes two, and Putin refuses. Therefore the challenge is played on the battlefield: “Strategy is massive pressure on Russia and massive support for Ukraine.” Blinken, however, is sure that Kiev will prevail: “There will be a sovereign and independent Ukraine long after Putin is no longer on the scene.”
The issue of sending new weapons to Ukraine agitates the German government, after the halt on the export of heavy weapons wanted by Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The CDU has launched a debate on the issue in Parliament, with the aim of having an ad hoc provision approved and establishing the quantity and quality of heavy weapons to be sent to Ukraine.
But the Italian majority is also divided, while the government is preparing a new decree to send weapons to Kiev. It will not be an inter-ministerial foreign and defense provision, therefore, but a new passage in the Council of Ministers already this week or the next to decide on new allocations for further military supplies in support of Ukraine. Nothing has yet been decided on the economic commitment and type of supplies, but the government seems to be in charge of new aid, including military aid, in Kiev. Among the hypotheses, that of Spike anti-tank missiles and Browning machine guns.
And this despite the choice may generate new fractures in the majority, especially in the Five Star Movement. With the former prime minister Giuseppe Conte relaunching the pacifist line and asking to oppose the sending of heavy weapons to Kiev. Today the national grillino council is held.
Start a new Thread