The set of successive shipments of military aid sent by Spain – mostly light weapons, grenade launchers and artillery ammunition – “is not enough” for the invaded Ukraine. In fact, the 200 tons of ammunition for mortars, shells and cannons sent on the Ysabel Army cargo ship on April 28 was enough for only two hours of fighting, according to the military who advise the Ukrainian presidency. He has commented on it this Friday Ukrainian ambassador to Spain, Serguei Pohoreltsevin an appearance before the media in Madrid.
The diplomat has taken advantage of the round date of the 100th day of the war to insist, now publicly, on his petition to the government of Pedro Sánchez to double its arms shipments. What has been sent so far by Spain, according to Pohoreltsev, supposes only 0.03% of war potential from this country.
“We do not ask for what Spain cannot provide,” said the ambassador. According to the information that the embassy has, “Spain could send Leopard battle tanks that it has in storage and without use,” he assured.
The Ukrainian government believes that Spain could also donate 155-millimeter howitzers, 120-millimeter mortars, anti-aircraft and anti-tank defense systems, and Harpoon anti-ship missiles. Despite using a conciliatory tone and words of thanks, the ambassador lamented that Spain is in “one of the lowest rates” of military aid compared to other countries in the European Union.
instructors
The Ministry of Defense has a plan to train Ukrainian cavalry crews in the use of the Leopard combat tanks available to the Spanish Army. What until now had been a possibility without official endorsement has been confirmed by the Ukrainian embassy.
Ambassador Pohoreltsev did not want to go into details, but he did admit that “SEGENPOL” (General Secretariat for Defense Policy) has a plan “on the table” to teach the Ukrainian military “as quickly as possible” the use of tanks whose domain they do not know because they are Western weapons and do not fit the parameters of the Soviet and post-Soviet T72 tanks that are mostly used in Eastern Europe.
“There is will, there is plan, what there is not is tanks”, summed up the Ukrainian diplomat. 100 days after the Russian invasion, he recalled that “Russian military material is 20 times greater than that of Ukraine”, and deplored the slow pace in shipments of weapons, this time heavy and long-range, because “without heavy weapons , without modern weapons, the war will last longer, more people will die and more infrastructure will be destroyed”. Roughly a third of the country’s infrastructure has already been destroyed by the Russian attack, according to Ukrainian government estimates.
Nuclear bomb
The Ukrainian army sees as a possible scenario of the conflict the Russia’s use of nuclear weapons. In a vision shared by analysts advising Defense -as this newspaper has recounted-, and also by other European staffs, Ukraine foresees “all threats, including nuclear ones -explained the ambassador to Spain- because it is not known what decisions can take the Russian president Occupying Chernobyl They have shown that they can use nuclear at any time.
Pohoreltsev believes that for this reason “the union against the aggressor is very important, to give a possible response” to an atomic incident. In Europe “we must be prepared for any kremlin gift“, has said.
And with those words he summed up what will undoubtedly be one of the matters for strategic reflection at the next NATO summit, to be held in Madrid on June 29 and 30. Ukraine is still “waiting to receive the invitation”, so its representative in Spain has not been able to report what rank a Ukrainian delegation would have at the summit. Yes, he has given as unlikely that the Ukrainian president will attend, Volodymyr Zelensky, to Madrid.
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Another of the issues of certain debate at the summit, the budget and spending on military aid shipments, has to do with one of the reflections made by the Ukrainian representative: “You cannot provide help with one hand and subsidize the war. It refers to the Spanish companies that still work with Russia.
There are already 1,037 companies that have cut relations and abandoned their Russian portfolio, but there are still some that the diplomat did not want to name. Yes, he has cited the tiler porcelainto say that he no longer has a business in Moscow and that, in addition, he has donated money to the National Bank of Ukraine, and also to the mining and armament firm Maxam, to say that he is in the process of leaving Russia.