MOSCOW, July 3. /TASS/. The United States halted weapons supplies to Ukraine amid depleted stocks and a general desire by US President Donald Trump to put pressure on Kiev, Nikolay Novik, an expert at the Institute of World Military Economy and Strategy at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, told TASS.
Earlier, The Economist wrote that as Russia is making incremental gains, Ukraine faces a grim reckoning after the United States halted the delivery of weapons. According to the British magazine, even as European countries have promised to help make up the shortfall as America withdraws its support, Kiev is already short of air-defense interceptors, including US-made Patriot systems.
"Reducing the delivery of weapons from the United States is part of a pressure campaign by the Trump administration to force Ukraine into making certain political concessions, but it also reflects a shortfall of stocks and difficulty in replenishing those," Novik maintained. "For the time being, Russia is not designated as the main threat [to the United States] in the national security threat assessment published by the 47th president’s administration. The Middle East and the situation around Iran, too, have subsided to the category of controllable de-escalation," he added.
Currently, the Pentagon views the growing might of China as the biggest threat as it pursues the goal of containing China while in parallel increasing the US posture in the Asia Pacific, the expert explained.
Meanwhile, Ukraine mostly needs air defense systems, artillery shells, projectiles for multiple rocket launchers, and far-range weapons - the production of these items on the shortage list cannot be restored in the next five years, Novik continued. These include Patriot air-defense interceptors, 155mm shells, Javelins, Stinger multiple rocket launchers, and THAAD air defense systems, he specified.
As regards the coalition of the willing, it will not be able to meet Ukraine’s demands even as the European defense production has been developing at "a very active and dynamic pace" since 2020, Novak argued. "While quite an assortment of [European-made] air defense systems is available now, <...> achieving sustainable mass production will take years as a well-established supply chain components-wise is needed for that," he concluded.