Last week, the 18th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group took place via video conference. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry confirmed that Ukraine will receive new long-range weapons, though the specifics of these weapons were not disclosed. Defense Express, a Ukrainian information and consulting firm, has speculated on the potential types of weapons Ukraine might acquire and their expected arrival times.
“A productive meeting. The support continues. There were important statements and commitments. It will continue. This year, we will receive weapons that are not yet available [for us] and will help us to hit the enemy and its logistics hubs,” said Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Illarion Pavliuk following the Ramstein Format meeting, Suspilne reported.
In the wake of the meeting that took place on 23 January, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reported on a number of agreements reached with partners. The ministry’s key message was “Stop panicking!” because there were no hints that Ukraine was losing support. On the contrary, they are talking about increasing aid, Defense Express says.
“So, in general, in this situation, it was not even appropriate to discuss scenarios where Ukraine is left without assistance. This is out of the question, we are talking about increasing the volume of the aid package to meet Ukraine’s needs,” the ministry spokesman said, according to Suspilne.
Ukraine’s Western allies are set to ramp up arms production, aiming to achieve a new level of ammunition production capacity by 2024. Additionally, several countries have declared substantial financial aid packages.
The key points of the recent Ramstein meeting were:
US Defense Secretary urges Ramstein Group to “dig deep” on Ukraine support
US Defense Secretary Austin noted that the Allies must continue to focus both on Ukraine’s “immediate battlefield needs, and on helping Ukraine to strengthen, modernize, and sustain its defense forces for the long haul.”
On Ukrainian TV, military expert Yevhen Dykyi called the 18th Ramstein Format meeting unique in terms of the fact that virtually no results were announced, praising the fact that such meetings are becoming more closed and decisions are being made that only become known after some new weapons are used is a much better practice because the enemy has no opportunity to prepare.
Deep strike weapons
Defense Express experts believe that the recent meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group yielded two significant outcomes: firstly, the meeting paid special attention to providing Ukraine with long-range weapons and, secondly, the meeting focused on support for Ukraine’s air defense.
The air defense issue was raised several times before, and the Allies kept supplying Ukraine with air defense systems and munitions for those, while expanding Ukraine’s long-range capabilities is rather new as supplies of deep-strike weapons to Ukraine are currently pretty much limited to Aglo-British missiles.
“Special attention was paid to deep strike weapons, i.e. systems that allow striking behind the contact line, and there is a full understanding of our partners that we need these weapons. The commitment to work to provide Ukraine with more weapons for such strikes was clearly assumed by the partners, they talked about it, and paid special attention to it,” said Ukraine Defense Ministry spokesman Illarion Pavliuk.
Currently, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are actively using such deep strike weapons as Strom Shadow/SCALP missiles provided by Britain and France, which remain the only weapon of this type available for Ukraine apart from the limited one-time supply of ATACMS missiles by the US.
“As for the new weapons already announced, in the short term, Ukraine is expected to receive high-precision GLSDB missile-bomb hybrids for HIMARS [multiple rocket launchers], which will allow it to attack targets at a range of 150 km,” Defense Express notes.
The experts note that the German Taurus cruise missiles requested by Ukraine for months are unlikely to be transferred at all, and even if they are, Germany has only a limited number of those.
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