Despite billions of dollars in additional weapons and security assistance that NATO announced this week, allied officials said Ukraine would not be ready to launch a dramatic counteroffensive or retake large swaths of territory from Russia until next year.
Donations of missiles, combat vehicles, ammunition and air defenses from the United States and European countries will take weeks, if not months, to reach the front lines.
Some of the newly committed weapons have not yet been bought or built.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said long-anticipated F-16s fighter jets would be delivered to Ukraine this summer. But even then, they might be used mostly defensively, as allies debated on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington whether the warplanes could fly into Russian airspace to attack.
“On many occasions, you could see that we can decide, but unfortunately we cannot deliver efficiently,” President Gitanas Nauseda of Lithuania said in a brief interview on Wednesday. “This is a huge disappointment for me personally, because Ukrainians are expecting that those goods will come, this military equipment will reach Ukraine, but it’s not happening.”
Thanking allies for the munitions on Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that “we expect them to be delivered as soon as possible, so that as many lives as possible can be saved.”
Most of the pledges to Ukraine at the NATO summit were described as long-term commitments to help ensure the country’s security over the next decade. They include a new NATO-run weapons and training coordination center, based in Germany, and donations toward a $43 billion infusion of support from alliance states in 2025.
A senior NATO official said the support would put Ukraine on a path toward being able to push back Russia next year, while Ukraine waits for more Western weapons to arrive and moves more of its troops to the front.
Separately, a senior U.S. defense official said the Ukrainians would remain on the defensive for the next six months, but in a constant churn on the battlefield that would ultimately fail to gain significant ground. Both officials spoke on the condition that they not be identified in keeping with alliance protocols.
U.S. officials and analysts say the situation on the battlefield has changed significantly in the past several weeks, as about $61 billion in aid approved by Congress in May begins to strengthen Ukrainian defenses. With the replenishment, Ukraine has slowed Russia’s territorial advances in Donetsk in the east and halted a Russian counteroffensive near Kharkiv in the northeast, officials say.
But Russian airstrikes on Monday that killed at least 44 people and obliterated a children’s hospital in Kyiv as NATO leaders began to gather in Washington underscored Ukraine’s urgent need for air defenses. Last spring, Mr. Zelensky had asked for seven sophisticated Patriot air defense systems to defend Ukraine’s cities but came up far short at the summit.
Instead, Ukraine will receive three additional Patriot batteries: two from Germany and Romania that were previously announced, and one from the United States. It will also get a different kind of high-powered air defense system, known as the SAMP/T, that Italy promised weeks ago.
Another Patriot system will be delivered, for now, in pieces to replace broken or worn-out parts of batteries already in Ukraine, said Ruben Brekelmans, the Dutch defense minister. The Netherlands had hoped to gather enough components from around Europe to send a complete Patriot, “but Ukraine can already use the parts that we are delivering, so it doesn’t mean that we need to wait for others,” Mr. Brekelmans said.
To be sure, several allies promised new assistance, although it was not clear when any of the matériel would be delivered.
Mr. Brekelmans said the Netherlands would buy $326 million in missiles for F-16 jets that it has already committed to Ukraine. Canada announced it would contribute about $367 million for Ukraine’s military, including to train pilots. Britain is giving more artillery, ammunition for machine guns, anti-tank missiles and other equipment. New Zealand, a non-NATO ally, said it would provide $4 million to buy and develop military drones out of its overall $16 million aid package.
Last week, the United States announced a $2.3 billion military aid package for Ukraine, including about $150 million in air defense interceptors, artillery and mortar rounds, and anti-tank weapons that will be sent immediately.
Most of the rest of it — $2.2 billion — will be spent on Patriot interceptors and other air defense missiles delivered in coming months.
On Thursday, the Biden administration announced a $225 million package that included the new Patriot battery, air defense interceptors, artillery rounds and other munitions to be rushed to Ukraine from Pentagon inventories.
Over the last two years, the war has sapped the stockpiles of NATO allies and demonstrated how slowly governments and commercial manufacturers have ramped up weapons production.
Micael Johansson, the chief executive of the Saab Group, a defense giant based in Sweden, said that the defense industry was still waiting for more long-term government contracts, but that manufacturers could work together more closely so that suppliers, like gunpowder companies, could keep up with the demand.
“Are we doing enough as industries? Probably not,” Mr. Johansson said at a German Marshall Fund forum during the summit.
The war has been “a huge wake-up call,” he said. Before Russia’s invasion in 2022, Europe “had been optimizing their capacity and capabilities to more or less a peace-dividend sort of situation. And all of a sudden everyone wants everything from us at the same time, everyone. So a little bit of the problem ends up in our lap.”
The military alliance is also on alert for further aggressions from Russia. Some allies at the summit said they would buy naval mines to protect their borders in the Baltic Sea. The United States announced it would place Tomahawk cruise missiles and, potentially, hypersonic long-range weapons in Germany. NATO’s procurement agency signed a nearly $700 million contract to buy Stinger antiaircraft missiles.
But when it came to Ukraine, allies remained divided on whether the weapons they have supplied could be used to strike deep into Russian territory.
“Use all weapons without any restrictions,” President Edgars Rinkevics of Latvia said.
Mr. Brekelmans, the Dutch defense minister, said the Netherlands also has not limited Ukraine from attacking military targets in Russia, but described ongoing discussions within the alliance on how far over the border the strikes could be. The Netherlands pledged last year to give Ukraine F-16s from its aging fleets.
Belgium is also providing F-16s, although Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said the 30 jets his country would give through 2028 could be used only over Ukraine’s territory. Belgium is among the allies — including the United States and Germany — that have resisted giving Ukraine broad latitude with counterattacks into Russia.
Thirteen allies have committed tens of millions of dollars so far to help Ukraine build or buy as many as one million drones through next year, said the Latvian defense minister, Andris Spruds, who is leading the coalition.
Ukraine’s military is already using drones produced by its defense industry to strike targets inside Russia. Oil refineries have been among the targets and have suffered a 17 percent reduction in output, the senior NATO official said.
“Already, some of the drones are in operation and combat,” Mr. Spruds said on Wednesday. “At the same time, of course, we are also scaling up, as those drones will be provided as soon as possible.”
The post NATO’s Pledges to Ukraine Fall Short for a Counteroffensive This Year appeared first on New York Times.
