Irish Examiner View: Increased military aid gives Ukraine a fighting chance

Even the Germans have started delivering anti-tank weapons, Stinger anti-aircraft weapons and, according to foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, “other things we didn’t want to talk about in public”.

A Ukrainian soldier stands a top a destroyed Russian APC after recent battle in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Saturday, March 26. Picture: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

Got a fighter jet handy? A couple of 155mm Howitzers to spare, perhaps?

If you have, you will be joining an ever-growing list of countries queuing up to get military materiel to Ukraine in a hurry. Russian prioritisation of the east and south of the country in its latest illegal assault on its neighbour has changed the military picture for the defenders of Ukraine, and their military needs have now changed too.

As the Russians are now bombing the remaining defenders of Mariupol to a pulp, Nato and non-Nato countries appear to be scrolling deeper through their military manifests to see what they can do to help the Ukrainians defend themselves in a realistic manner without inviting a holocaust.

Unnamed countries have already donated fighter aircraft and assault helicopters and even the Germans, so long married to Russian oil and gas, have started delivering anti-tank weapons, Stinger anti-aircraft weapons and, according to foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, “other things we didn’t want to talk about in public so deliveries could be carried out quickly and securely”.

Fighting between the Ukrainians and the Russians in the Donbas is expected to be large-scale and bloody, and the arrival of new materiel is seen as essential if the Ukrainians are to have any chance of defending themselves with any degree of success.

With the US and its Nato allies leading the charge to provide arms, and with Australia, Norway, and the Netherlands now throwing their weight into the fray as well as many other countries, it all adds up to the fact that Ukraine has a chance to more than just gadfly Russian aggression.