The arsenal is about to run out, Ukraine calls for 1,000 times more missiles per day

In recent weeks, Ukraine has sent aid lists military additionally to the US, asking Washington to provide weapons to help Kiev cope with the Russian military campaign.

However, a recent list sent by Ukraine to US congressmen seems to indicate increased demand for US-made Stinger air defense missiles and Javelin anti-tank missiles. Accordingly, Ukraine said it urgently needs 500 Stinger and 500 Javelin missiles per day.

The new list comes as Ukraine is facing an arms shortage due to Russia’s protracted military campaign.

According to the newspaper The Times Britain, Ukraine said it was running out of weapons needed to respond to Russian planes and tanks, and called on Germany and France to fulfill their commitments and send more weapons as promised.

Last week, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba complained that the country’s military had only “two weeks of weapons to fight” before it ran out of anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles. The situation is said to have only “partially improved” after countries sent more weapons in recent days.

However, according to Ukrainian official Paul Grod, a number of countries, including Germany and France, have not delivered support weapons as promised. According to Grod, the reality shows that Ukraine is using up all necessary defense systems.

“The military needs anti-tank equipment, air defense and more sophisticated systems. They are running out of Stinger and Javelin missiles. They need to be equipped with the ability to protect the airspace,” Mr. Grod said.

Recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukrainian military forces only have enough weapons for a week, while Russia is still shelling continuously on many fronts.

As of March 7, less than two weeks after Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine, the United States and other NATO member countries have brought about 17,000 anti-tank missiles and 2,000 anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine.

Since then, NATO countries, including the United States, have continued to provide arms and military equipment to Ukraine, even as Russia threatened to target weapons shipments to Kiev.

A senior US defense official said that the last batch of a $350 million security assistance package approved at the end of February has arrived in Ukraine in the past few days, while the next two aid packages with a total of 1 billion USD has started to arrive.

US President Joe Biden on March 24 announced that weapons and ammunition are still being shipped to Ukraine. The UK also announced on March 23 that it would send an additional 6,000 missiles to Ukraine with 33 million USD to support finance for the Ukrainian army.

Germany has provided 1,000 anti-tank weapons, 500 Stinger missiles and promised to deliver an additional 2,700 Strela surface-to-air missiles from the army’s former stockpile. But only 2,000 Strelas missiles were said to be usable, and 500 were in the hands of Ukrainian soldiers.

On March 21, Germany said it would supply more of the same weapons, but sent directly from the manufacturers and not from their stockpile. However, Berlin did not provide figures or timing of the transfer.