Ukrainian presidential advisor Mikhail Podolyak has criticized the European Union for sending Kiev the ‘wrong’ weapons amid the country's continuing conflict with Russia.
Taking to Twitter on Saturday to express his frustration both over the type of weapons being supplied and the pace of deliveries, Podolyak offered a reminder that Ukraine keeps asking EU members for armaments and, in his opinion, “Europeans [sic] support the call for their governments.”
But the “EU gives Ukraine weapons but not the ones we asked for,” he claimed, before adding that the “weapons take too long to arrive.”
He concluded his post with what appears to be a warning: “Democracy won’t win from playing this game. Ukraine needs weapons. Not in a month. Now.”
Last month, President Volodymyr Zelensky's regime banned Ukraine's second largest political party, the Opposition Platform – For Life, and earlier this week its leader, Victor Medvedchuk, was captured by government forces.
A couple of weeks ago, the country’s foreign minister, Dmitry Kuleba, while speaking at NATO headquarters in Brussels, said that he came with a simple agenda consisting of only three items: “weapons, weapons and weapons.” Kuleba argued that, as Euro-Atlantic security is “indivisible,” by fighting Russian forces Ukraine is defending not only itself but also bolstering the security of the bloc's members.
Following the launch of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, the EU announced that it would cover the delivery of $500 million worth weapons to Kiev, marking a U-turn in the bloc’s longstanding policy of not providing military assistance.
In addition to EU-level funding, many individual members have significantly increased their military support for Kiev. In a major policy change Germany – the EU’s richest country – reversed its stance on not providing Kiev with lethal weapons and significantly increased its military spending to assist Ukraine.
However, despite many requests from Kiev, Berlin has refused to send any “offensive weapons,” such as tanks and other armored vehicles.
Despite all of the support Kiev is getting from the West, Zelensky has asked for more. He has stated that Ukraine desperately needed more tanks and aircraft, but that its partners have been hesitant on this matter due to an unwillingness to risk a direct confrontation with Russia. For the same reason they have refused to close the sky over the country.
Russia attacked the neighboring state in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French brokered protocols were designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.
The Kremlin has since demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.
Moscow has warned Western countries against “pumping up” Ukraine with weapons, saying that these actions were exacerbating the conflict.