The delivery of which weapons was announced on the eve and on the first day of the NATO summit in Vilnius

During the first day of the July 11 NATO summit in Vilnius, France and Germany, the bloc’s largest members in continental Europe, announced new arms supplies to Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron said that long-range missiles will be supplied to the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) to support their offensive against the Russian Armed Forces.

Agence France Press reported that they are air-launched Scalp-EG cruise missiles, while Reuters specified that some of them have already been delivered, with a total of 50 of these missiles. In the armed forces of Great Britain, the same missile is called Storm Shadow, it is produced for these two countries and for export to third countries by the European concern MBDA. The French Air Force has ordered just 500 air-launched Scalp missiles, while the RAF has ordered between 700 and 1,000 units, according to the Independent.

The British government announced in early May the delivery of an unnamed number of Storm Shadows to Ukraine. The Armed Forces of Ukraine launch them from Soviet Su-24 bombers.

According to a source close to the Ministry of Defense, several dozen launches of these missiles against targets in Russia were recorded in two months, a significant number of them were shot down. The military department has repeatedly reported the interception of such missiles or their damage to buildings – including civil and administrative, as well as infrastructure. For example, on June 22, several such missiles fired at the Chongarsky bridge in the Crimea, the restoration of which took 10 days.

According to Vedomosti’s interlocutor in the military-industrial complex, these missiles, which are hardly visible to radars, and their American, Russian and Chinese counterparts are designed to strike stationary, including protected, targets and have a combined guidance system, including homing in the final section. This is a serious adversary for our air defense and a dangerous weapon, but the Russian Armed Forces have the capabilities to deal with them and there is no reason to call such missiles “game-changing”, as the Western media write, says the source of Vedomosti. In his opinion, the decision announced by Macron was caused by the exhaustion of British supplies.

On July 11, the FRG also announced the next supply of weapons to Ukraine. The new package of German military assistance will amount to 700 million euros. In particular, it will include two launchers of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system (the battery of this system includes from four to eight launchers), 25 Leopard 1A5 tanks, 40 Marder 1A3 infantry fighting vehicles, five Bergepanzer 2 armored recovery vehicles, 20,000 artillery rounds of 155 mm caliber, 5000 smoke rounds, as well as reconnaissance UAVs and anti-UAV defense systems.

According to Mikhail Barabanov, an expert at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, the delivery of these weapons was announced several months ago. As for the Leopard 1A5 tanks (these are tanks of the previous generation compared to the already delivered Leopard 2), this is the first batch of those former Danish 88 tanks of this type that are in storage with the Reinmetall concern. He “pushed them through” to Ukraine, like the Marder infantry fighting vehicles he had, at the very beginning of the military operation, the expert recalls: “The restoration and transfer of this equipment is paid for by the German government.”

In addition, before the start of the summit, on July 7, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said during a briefing that Washington had decided to transfer cluster munitions to Kyiv. The White House acknowledged the danger of such weapons to the civilian population, noting that Ukraine provided the United States with written guarantees that the ammunition would be used “with caution.”

US President Joe Biden explained in an interview with CNN that the decision to transfer cluster munitions to Kyiv was made against the backdrop of a shortage of conventional shells in both the United States and Ukraine. He emphasized that this is a temporary measure until the US produces “more 155 mm ammunition.” The Armed Forces of Ukraine use the American M109 Paladin self-propelled guns and M777 howitzers.

Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov called the US decision to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine “a gesture of desperation.” According to him, Washington and its allies realized “their impotence.” Antonov added that the US actions are connected with the unwillingness to admit the failures and failure of the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the counteroffensive. Kyiv’s promises to use cluster munitions “carefully” were called “an oxymoron” by the head of the DNR, Pushilin.

An interlocutor close to the leadership of the DPR said that such support for Kyiv could force the Russian Armed Forces to give a symmetrical response. On July 11, the Russian Defense Ministry also announced that the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation would be forced to use similar means of destruction as a response.