New Ukrainian Defense Minister Says More Weapons Are Needed

According to Mr. Rustem Umerov, it is necessary to come up with a “philosophy of attitude towards the army”, and provide them with everything they need, including weapons and military equipment.

“Our soldiers are the top priority. We must introduce a new philosophy to the army and provide them with everything they need: weapons, military equipment, uniforms, food and medicine. The next priority is weapons. We need them now, as much as possible,” said the new Ukrainian Defense Minister Umerov.

Earlier, during his inaugural speech at the Verkhovna Rada, Mr. Umerov admitted that the Ukrainian state budget lacked 250 billion Hryvnia to pay the servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine until the conflict ended.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky complained about delays in arms supplies from the West. In a statement posted on the government website, President Zelensky said that to speed up the counterattack of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, more Western-style military equipment, including fighter jets, was needed.

However, the United States, which leads among Western countries in the volume of assistance provided to Ukraine, will find it increasingly difficult to ask US lawmakers to allocate funds from the budget to support Kiev.

“The deepening rift among Republicans threatens to block further aid to Ukraine, so with each additional funding request, it may become harder to reach consensus in Congress,” The Washington Post wrote.

Western media all believe that not only the US, but also other Western partners of Kiev are disappointed that Ukraine's counterattack has not achieved results. The Berliner Zeitung (Germany) said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces suffered heavy losses in the counterattack, but never achieved success. The situation of the Ukrainian army is so difficult that the upcoming delivery of Western weapons will not be able to compensate for the huge losses in personnel in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

“The new Ukrainian Defense Minister’s position seems to be quite difficult: he needs to turn things around on the fronts of the Northern Military District, but how to achieve this is not entirely clear,” commented Vladimir Batyuk, head of the Center for Political-Military Studies at the Institute of the United States and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Umerov once again emphasized the miraculous power of Western weapons. However, as practice shows, this does not bring the expected results on the battlefield. However, Kiev’s position remains the same: no matter who the Defense Minister is, his task is to ask for as much military support as possible from the West.”

On the contrary, Vladimir Olenchenko, senior researcher at the Center for European Studies at IMEMO RAS, believes that only the new presidential election in the US could make adjustments to the pace of arms supplies to Kiev.