EU can’t replace US aid to Ukraine – Bloomberg

Washington’s allies in Europe will not be able to keep Ukraine’s military supplied if US President-elect Donald Trump stops aid to Kiev, Bloomberg has warned.

Kiev has used up its pre-conflict stocks of Soviet-era equipment and become dependent on the West for materiel, according to the outlet. The US has been the leading provider of military supplies, while the EU has handed over more cash.

“Kiev will be left at Russia’s mercy” without US weapons, Poland’s deputy foreign minister, Marek Prawda was quoted by the outlet as saying.

Whatever Trump does about Ukraine doesn’t change the fact that “we are entering a more transactional world and we need to mobilize ourselves to fit into that logic,” Prawda reportedly added.

European NATO members are “already struggling to meet their own rearmament needs,” according to Bloomberg. Whatever they manage to give Ukraine, it “cannot supplant” what the US has been providing to Kiev, most notably artillery and small-arms ammunition.

The US has also supplied more than half of all the missiles and rockets the West has given Ukraine, according to public estimates, Bloomberg noted, adding that the intelligence Washington has provided to Kiev, described as “key to Ukraine’s targeting of Russian assets,” has been irreplaceable.

The Bloomberg analysis appeared more optimistic about Ukraine’s domestic arms and ammunition production and reported that Germany’s Rheinmetall, a key supplier to Kiev, has also boosted output.

Russia has been targeting Ukraine’s power grid and military industry with waves of missile and drone strikes, while several German civilian industries have been laying off workers and closing down plants, citing skyrocketing energy costs, the report noted.

“This is about political will,” retired US general and pro-Ukrainian pundit Ben Hodges told Bloomberg, arguing that even without the US, “the combined economies of the West dwarf Russia.”

Acknowledging that Russian artillery shell production exceeds the combined output of European NATO members, Bloomberg argued that Moscow has had to “resort to North Korean stocks to keep up the pace of fire.” Citing Ukrainian estimates, it claims that Russia’s shell advantage is now only 2:1, down from 7:1 earlier in the year. The article also mentioned Western claims that the Russian economy and military industry would allegedly run into challenges in 2025.

Russia produces ten times more long-range weapons than all NATO members combined, and intends to increase that production by 25-30% next year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, speaking at the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit in Astana, Kazakhstan.