
Western assistance to Ukraine in our war against the Russian Federation is much wider than just lethal weapons.
For example, near the border with Poland, the flying radars of the United States and Britain hang almost 24/7—any launch of a ballistic missile and overflight of aviation is clearly visible to them.
In the 21st century, it is not difficult to organize automated mailing with a course for civil defense on air alerts and for air defense posts.
In a situation where the cruise missiles of the Russian Federation are coming to an end (already about 500 of them were launched) and bombardment with unguided bombs will soon be required, this option becomes invaluable. Both for saving the lives of civilians, and for ambushes on aircrafts of the Russian Aerospace Forces.
Reports of the arrival of British special forces, the transmission of intelligence data in real time and commercial satellite images for Ukraine can be part of the same chain—creating a center for processing incoming information at the operational and tactical level. Perhaps this is now more important than grenade launchers and equipment of the former UAF from storage.
But we are, of course, interested in lethal weapons. First of all, in order to weaken the effect of bombing with heavy 500 kg bombs—the Russians made good cartoons about high-precision weapons, but they massively use the same cast iron in neighborhoods and substations against Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, and Akhtyrka, as in Syria.
The United States gave us "several hundred", the Netherlands—200, and Germany—500 Stinger MANPADS. This high-energy MANPADS with a heavy warhead has got several upgrades since its inception and may well complicate the life of the Russian Aerospace Forces. Which, for throwing iron in dense clouds, go down below 3,000 meters and are forced to accompany supply columns by helicopters over vast spaces.
Together with the Polish Pioruns and Groms, the Slovak Needles, Stingers of the Baltic countries, and Arrows-2M from those available in Germany, more than 2,000 MANPADS alone came and will come to Ukraine. This is a very serious and rejoicing number—the combined arms brigade is covered from the air by 52 launchers.
Now the reserve corps is rising, and we are able to create hundreds of remote posts in the depths of the defense, build up their Zu-23\2 on vehicles, and prop them up with Shilkas and Tunguskas. By creating continuous fire zones behind the line of contact that will seriously complicate the life of attack aircraft and helicopters of army aviation: they will not necessarily shoot them down, but they will not allow them to work comfortably and make run over the target.
Until combat crew for more serious air defense systems are trained, they will either be handed over to us as part of military assistance, or Ukraine will purchase them on lease to make up for losses.
The second thing that comes in huge quantities are anti-tank systems and grenade launchers. To date, according to the foreign press alone, there will be 14,000 of them. Cheap, fast, and reliable, and it does not take months to master them. For example, NATO will ship us over 7000 pieces of the old M72 NATO. It seems that this is an ordinary disposable grenade launcher like an RPG-26.
And it is so. But from its classmate RPG-26, the SOF fighters on the Andriivsky bridge in Kherson burned the modernized tank of the Russians with a frontal attack. With 150 troop battalions and a reserve corps, it is difficult to sort through the nomenclature. Together with 5,000 Swedish AT-4s, the grenade launchers will be a nightmare for Russian supply convoys, a second line of battalion ambushes and blocks at crossroads.
A mobile war of patrols, company groups and advanced post over a vast territory—the type of war that is now unfolding in the south, where the Russians have operational space, and in the north with attempts to blockade Sumy and Chernihiv, having Desna and wooded areas on the flanks.
1,000 German Panzerfaust-3 with 5 tandem grenades each—pierce 900 mm of rolled armor behind tandem protection, they can be perfectly used even against the T-72B3 in contact battles on the line of contact.
And technological anti-tank weapons—MILAN anti-tank systems from Italy and Spain, new batches of Javelins from the USA and Britain. There are even reports of the latest MMP complexes from France. Several hundred launchers, but time is needed to train combat crews, even if one makes number 1 from ready-made assistance gunners for Javelin.
Urgent assistance from the EU for 500 million euros and from the US for 600 million dollars, of course, will include a heavier list. And the first swallows can already be seen at night on the roads of Western Ukraine. But since the Europeans are silent about them in the press, we will not specify either. Since Poland speaks about transferring the MiG-29 from those available with the United States, let it speak about it. The most interesting thing will come a little later, when personnel and combat crews will be trained for it on the eastern flank of NATO.
Plus small arms (machine guns in two calibers, sniper and assault rifles), 60 mm mortars, ammunition, medicines, IFAK first aid kits, rations, and consumables—all this is the blood of war in the context of the transition of the Ukrainian economy to a military one. An invaluable aid that will save thousands of lives in the long run as Ukraine continues to fight.