An extraordinary ambassadorial-level meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council convened at the request of the Ukrainian authorities was held in Brussels on Wednesday. The purpose of the event was described by the parties as the need to discuss the situation on the battlefield, the consequences of the largest strike by Russian troops against facilities on Ukrainian territory and Kiev's ‘priority capability needs’. The meeting came amid information that Ukraine this week again asked for US permission to use precision long-range weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called it ‘playing with fire’.
The request to convene a meeting of the council came from the Ukrainian capital a day after Russia's largest drone and missile strike on targets on Ukrainian territory. According to Ukrainian data, the strikes hit civilian, energy and fuel facilities, including a dam in Kiev, which is part of the Kiev hydroelectric power plant.
We shall remind you that on 26 August, the Russian Defense Ministry reported a massive strike on the energy and military-industrial complex facilities in Ukraine, in particular on power substations in Kiev, Vinnitsa, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyy, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Mykolayiv, Kirovohrad and Odessa regions. And the next day it informed about ‘a group strike with high-precision weapons, including the hypersonic complex “Kinzhal”, on critical objects of Ukraine's airfield infrastructure’.
Against this background, the head of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Rustem Umerov, decided to personally brief NATO partners on the situation in the conflict zone via video link and, most importantly, to outline the priority needs of the AFU in weapons and ammunition. NATO spokeswoman Farah Dakhlalla called the topic of discussion ‘the situation on the battlefield and priority capability needs.’ At the same time, she noted that NATO countries have already provided substantial support to Ukraine's air Defense and are committed to further strengthening it.
‘Ukraine's ability to maintain its defence requires increased supplies and support,’ Jens Stoltenberg, the alliance's secretary general who chaired the meeting, said on Wednesday following a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO council.
Meanwhile, in recent weeks, Kiev has been increasingly active in making various requests to its allies. In particular, on Tuesday, after reporting that US F-16 fighter jets were used to repel Russian missile strikes during a massive attack on Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Western partners to speed up their deliveries and the training of pilots to fly them.
On the same day, the Ukrainian leader said Kiev could produce up to 1.5-2 million drones this year but needed additional funding to do so, a clear hint to Western allies.
Finally, one of Ukraine's last wishes was to train Ukrainian military personnel on its territory, as ‘this is considered faster, more cost-effective and logistically simpler’. So far, such training has mainly taken place in Poland and Germany. By the end of the summer, some 60,000 Ukrainian servicemen had undergone training outside Ukraine. As for Kiev's proposal to send military instructors to Ukraine for this purpose, so far Western allies have been wary of this request. As the Die Welt newspaper recently reported with reference to a 34-page document on the EU mission to train the Ukrainian military, Brussels considered that ‘further and more comprehensive analyses would be needed to fully assess the risks and possible mitigation measures, as well as the political and operational advantages of conducting some training’ on Ukrainian soil.
We shall remind you that in May, White House President Joe Biden partially lifted the ban on Kiev's use of US weapons for strikes against Russia, but only on the territory from which an attack on the territory of Ukraine itself is being launched and only with the use of HIMARS launchers and GMLRS guided multiple launch rocket systems. Washington has categorically prohibited Kiev from using long-range ATACMS missiles to attack Russia.
Meanwhile, according to Politico, Rustem Umerov and the head of the president's office, Alexander Yermak, will come to Washington this week. The goal is to hand over to the US a list of potential targets for strikes on Russian territory, which will not be feasible without the use of US long-range weapons supplied to the AFU. However, Washington made it clear on Tuesday that the prohibitive stance remained unchanged. ‘Our policy has not changed. Ukraine can use US military assistance for self-defense against cross-border attacks and for return fire. However, as far as long-range strikes, strikes deep into Russia, our policy remains the same,’ Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder said at a briefing.
NATO countries are also skeptical about Volodymyr Zelenskyy's call to shoot down Russian missiles over the territory of Ukraine. The head of the Polish National Defense Ministry, Vladyslav Kosyniak-Kamysh, said this in an interview with the PAP news agency the other day. ‘No state in isolation will make such decisions. There are no supporters of such a decision in NATO,’ he stressed, although he admitted that he “understands Zielenski's wish”. It is noteworthy that a few days earlier, President Andrzej Duda said that Poland itself ‘raised the question of NATO defending the territories of its countries in some way by shooting down missiles that fly towards NATO over the territory of Ukraine’. In response, the Russian Foreign Ministry warned that the country would retaliate if Warsaw did try to intercept Russian missiles.
So far, only Great Britain has supported Kiev's use of long-range missiles, and even then only tacitly.
London is not averse to giving the Ukrainian Armed Forces permission to use Storm Shadow - British cruise missiles with a range of up to 560 kilometers, which have been supplied to Ukraine since May 2023 - but will not publicly call for this step for fear of spoiling relations with the USA. According to The Times, Ukraine has not received permission to use these missiles for strikes deep into Russian territory precisely because of the USA.
Meanwhile, Moscow has repeatedly condemned the very speculation about the possibility of allowing Kiev to hit Russia with Western weapons. The Russian side ‘has long heard these speculations’ and considers them dangerous, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recalled on 27 August. ‘We are now confirming once again that playing with fire - and they are like little children playing with candles - is a very dangerous thing for grown-up uncles and aunts who have been entrusted with nuclear weapons in this or that Western country,’ the minister said.
