Is West cutting aid to force Ukraine to negotiate?

Kyrylo Danylchenko, a military expert, wrote about this on his Facebook page.

"This was, by the way, a long-standing goal of Washington's - for European NATO partners to increase their defense spending to at least 2% of GDP, and for the EU to pay for the EU's problems. The Americans can safely pop the champagne," he writes.

The US has already pushed Russia out of the EU gas market, avoided the EU's drift toward Russia and China, and gained a huge arms market. Poland, Romania, and the Baltic states alone are ordering hundreds of missile launchers and thousands of missiles, and the US will increase annual production of Patriot batteries to 12 due to demand.

As Europe begins to increase spending on the military and aid packages to Ukraine, the United States is closing its domestic policy and Middle East issues. 

European countries increase assistance to Ukraine

• Germany is doubling its military aid to Kyiv, from $4 billion to $8 billion. 
• UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps announced that the country would increase military support for Ukraine.
• Denmark is also significantly increasing its support - by $3 billion over the next 5 years. 
• The Netherlands is also stepping up its efforts with €2 billion in military aid.
• Finland continues to send Ukraine monthly packages worth 100-200 million euros.
• The EU alone has provided military and economic aid, cheap loans and tranches worth about 84 billion euros.
• 14 billion of them are free as grants. This is the three-year pre-war budget of the Armed Forces of Ukraine! 
• There was also assistance from NATO, not just the EU, plus Canada ($750 million) and Australia.
• The United States itself, by the way, gave Kyiv $60 billion, including $44 billion in weapons, equipment, training, and logistics.

All Western assistance to Ukraine is either very important or critical

Danylchenko recalls that the British Commonwealth received 31 billion dollars during World War II. In terms of parity, this amount is now around 400 billion.

"That is, we have already received more than a third of the money, goods, and services from the programs for the "empire over which the sun never set" in the largest conflict in history within six years," he writes. 

Although it may seem like a drop in the bucket compared to a lend-lease. Instead, it helps to make "strategic interventions". For example, the destruction of Russian equipment. Also thousands of MRAPs and APCs - strategic supplies that have saved tens of thousands of lives during evacuations. Intelligence data from a network of satellites and strategic UAVs - can impact on the course of hostilities.

Until spring, the skies over Ukraine will be protected by an additional, German Patriot battery. Five medium-range IRIS-T systems and four short-range systems will be defending the area. Of course, the missiles and in-line repair are also made in Germany.

All four European shell producers are overwhelmed with orders - the EU is already saying that they will not have time to ramp up production by March 2024 and will spend the entire next year on targeted shells. 

But a million shells from the EU, even with a delay, is a big number, and the IDF is currently spending up to 4,000 shells a day on the extremely intensive operation in Gaza. Rheinmetall has received an order for 100,000 120 mm mines. This is also strategic support for two years. 

Kyrylo Danylchenko believes that Ukraine needs to increase the production of simple weapons - anti-tank and guided anti-personnel mines, disposable 30 and 40-mm grenades, fragmentation rounds for grenade launchers, 2nd generation ATGMs.

“All the things that can give us an advantage here and now and not drain our partners' resources,” he writes.

Mastering the rifle and machine gun cartridge, grenades for automatic grenade launchers and a conditional portable disposable flamethrower will have a significant impact on what is happening in the positions.

"Thanks to high-precision delivery vehicles and drones, for example, we have destroyed two Buks, a Strela-10 and a Tor this week - we are constantly working on air defense and rear, often at the expense of our partners' equipment."

Recently, there was an attempt to advance near Avdiivka - the enemy lost two company kits in a few hours of fighting at the stage of advancement, getting caught in a kill box with a damaged main vehicle.

This is all thanks to the supply of 155 mm shells, tandem-headed air defense systems with air bursts, smart mines, remote mining systems, and intelligence information. All this gives Ukraine an advantage on the tactical and operational battlefield.

The expert emphasizes that despite the growing number of articles in the Western media claiming that aid will be reduced to bring Ukraine to the negotiating table, this is not yet evident in arms contracts or the intentions of politicians in the first EU economies.