Ukraine is angrily pointing the finger at Germany for blocking NATO weapons sales to the country as Kiev officials continue sounding the alarm over preparations for a possible “Russian invasion”.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov lashed out at Berlin during a fresh Financial Times interview: “They continue to build the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and at the same time block our [purchases of] defensive weapons. This is very unfair,” he said.
He pinpointed that it was Germany blocking the NATO transfer, describing also that last month Germany vetoed Ukraine’s purchase of other military gear through the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA). But German leaders have recently signaled they believe only a “political” solution can resolve the crisis and ensure lasting peace in the Donbass region, a policy of the Merkel government.
Reznikov said that Ukraine will now seek to ink outside bilateral deals individually with supportive nations like the US, UK, France, and Lithuania. But the Biden administration, which appears to be seeking ways to quickly climb down from the current drastically heightened tensions with Russia, is unlikely to pump more arms to Kiev anytime soon, in order to avoid unnecessarily provoking Putin.
The Associated Press reported late last week. “Senior State Department officials have told Ukraine that NATO membership is unlikely to be approved in the next decade, according to a person familiar with those private talks who spoke on condition of anonymity.”
On Friday Russia’s Foreign Ministry released a statement urging that NATO immediately rescind a 2008 promise that it would “eventually” admit Ukraine and Georgia – both which border Russia and are former Soviet satellite states. “In the fundamental interests of European security, it is necessary to formally disavow the decision of the 2008 NATO Bucharest summit that ‘Ukraine and Georgia will become NATO members,'” statement said.
Many analysts have observed the likelihood that more West-supplied weapons for Ukraine would only ensure Russia positions itself for directly in the conflict in Donbass…
“U.S. weapons shipments to Kyiv have done nothing whatsoever to push Russian forces out of Ukraine,” writes @DanDePetris. https://t.co/ybP1N7cOMv
— reason (@reason) December 8, 2021
As we earlier detailed, just before that State Dept. officials said it’s unlikely that Ukraine would receive NATO membership for at least the next decade.
Yet hawks on both side of the aisles in Congress are continuing to pressure Biden into some kind of more muscular action on the Ukraine-Russia issue, either through more robust weapons packages, or through some firmer level of commitment of a path to NATO membership.