KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — On a day of give and take, Western nations made more pledges to send arms to Ukraine while the European Union’s full ban on Russian coal imports kicked in Thursday amid intelligence claims that sanctions against Moscow were hurting its defense exports.
Germany, seen early in Russia’s invasion as a lackadaisical Ukrainian ally, is making what Chancellor Olaf Scholz described as a “massive” break with its past by sending weapons to the war-ravaged country.
Scholz said Germany “is shipping arms — a great, great many, sweeping and very effective. And we will continue to do so in the coming time.” His government has approved military exports of at least $710 million and plans to provide further financial aid to Ukraine, the chancellor said.
In Copenhagen, Britain and Denmark also made additional commitments to help Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion, which has devastated the nation and reverberated across the world.
“We will not let you down,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said as she opened a daylong international donor’s conference. Denmark said a new contribution of $113 million would push the total amount of funding from the small northern nation of 5.8 million to over $500 million. She called it “a huge donation.”
In comparison, Ukraine’s top donor, the United States, has committed $9.1 billion in security aid since Russian troops invaded on Feb. 24.
To put more pressure on Russia, Britain announced it will send additional multiple launch rocket systems and guided missiles to Ukraine. The missiles can hit targets up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) away with pinpoint accuracy, the U.K. government said.
The new weapons, whose number wasn’t specified, come on top of several rocket-launch systems Britain provided earlier this year after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine.
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said the bolstered military support shows the West “will stand shoulder-to-shoulder, providing defensive military aid to Ukraine to help them defend against Putin’s invasion,” Wallace said at a meeting of mostly northern European allies of Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded by videoconference for more aid. “The sooner we stop Russia, the sooner we can feel safe,” he said.
Britain said that Moscow was already strained by the need to produce armored fighting vehicles for its troops in Ukraine and hence “is highly unlikely to be capable of fulfilling some export orders,” in a sector it has long taken pride in.
The British defense intelligence update, highlighting “the increasing effect of Western sanctions,” dovetails with Western belief that the series of measures they imposed on the Kremlin since the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine are increasingly having an impact on the Russian economy.
The update said that because of the war and sanctions, “its military industrial capacity is now under significant strain, and the credibility of many of its weapon systems has been undermined by their association with Russian forces’ poor performance.”
As the war nears the half-year point, Russia faces other challenges. Amid reports that hundreds of Russian soldiers were refusing to fight and trying to quit the military, covert recruitment efforts are underway that include using prisoners to make up for a shortage in trained troops.
Russia military credibility came under more pressure on Wednesday when Ukraine said nine Russian warplanes were destroyed following explosions at an air base in Russian-controlled Crimea that appeared to be the result of a Ukrainian attack.
