The $680 million military-aid package promised by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during his Kyiv visit three weeks ago has arrived in Ukraine, and has shaped up to be the largest such allotment to date.
In all, Germany has contributed about €28 billion ($29 million) in aid to Ukraine since the start of the Russian full-scale invasion in 2022.
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The latest package includes the kinds of air defense systems that President Volodymyr Zelensky continually requests: two IRIS-T SLM and two IRIS-T SLS batteries and missiles; plus two additional Patriot launchers, supplementing the two previously delivered by Berlin.
Also included are two Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns with 65,000 rounds of ammunition; two TRML-4D air surveillance radar systems, and an undisclosed number of AIM-9L/I-1 Sidewinder missiles. The US-made air-to-air missiles are carried by fighter jets.
As for ground vehicles, the package includes 15 Leopard 1 A5 main battle tanks (following the delivery of 88 such tanks already), ammunition for Leopard 2 tanks, a Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzer and more than 50,000 rounds of 155 mm shells. Also packed in are 12 armored vehicles with kinetic defense systems, 30 MRAP vehicles with mine and ambush protection, five remotely operated demining systems, and approximately 4,500 anti-tank mines.
Among the other gifts rounding out the delivery are:
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- Seven Caracal transport helicopters
- Five AMPS helicopter self-defense systems and 15,000 mortar rounds
- 30 Vector drones with spare parts
- 30 RQ-35 Heidrun reconnaissance drones
- 14 Hornet XR reconnaissance drones
- 12 Zetros trucks
- Eight fuel tankers
- Small arms including 120 GMW grenade launchers, 200 MG4 machine guns and 420 MK 556 assault rifles, 80 HLR 338 sniper rifles, and 100 CR 308 rifles
- More than 4.3 million rounds of small arms ammunition.
Pro-Ukraine protesters demonstrate in Bratislava as Fico meets with Putin in Moscow
Two former prime ministers gathered with political activists in front of Slovakia’s government building in Bratislava on Monday to protest a meeting between their prime minister, Robert Fico, and Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
Much like his Hungarian counterpart, Viktor Orban, Fico has been at loggerheads with his European Union colleagues over his close relationship with Putin, and his opposition to the EU’s provision of military aid to Ukraine.
The protest, called “Enough of Russia”, was put on by the Peace for Ukraine organization in response to Fico’s trip to Moscow, saying that the meeting strengthens Russian influence in Slovakia.
Fico said that one of the goals of his trip was to discuss the issue of Russian natural gas deliveries, on which Slovakia is overwhelmingly reliant.
Former prime ministers Igor Matovič and Eduard Heger joined other opposition leaders, artists, and Ukrainian refugees at the protest, where demonstrators shouted “Enough of Fico!”, “Glory to Ukraine!”, and called Fico a “traitor.”
Matovič founded Slovakia’s Ordinary People’s party, which put forth a populist, anti-elite platform that landed him the prime minister’s chair in March 2020. He was succeeded by one of his protégés, Heger, in April 2021. In May of 2023, their conservative party lost control of the government to the liberal progressives, and in October 2023, power was handed over to Fico’s mish-mash populist coalition of liberals and conservatives.
The leaders of Peace for Ukraine said that Fico may have violated Slovakian law by meeting with Putin, and by cooperating with Russia, and on Monday filed a complaint with the Prosecutor General’s office.
Ukrainian drones target the same oil depot in Russia that was blasted two weeks ago
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted that, according to Russian authorities, Ukrainian drones over the weekend targeted a fuel facility in Western Russia that was successfully set ablaze by Kyiv’s UAVs on Dec 13.
The governor of the western Russian region of Oryol, Andrei Klychkov, claimed on Sunday that Russian air defenses and electronic warfare (EW) “downed 20 Ukrainian drones over Oryol Oblast and that drone strikes caused a fire at a fuel facility,” ISW analysts reported.
Footage published on Sunday seems to show the results of a drone strike at the Stalnoy Kon (or “Steel Horse”) oil depot on the northeastern outskirts of the region’s capital city of Oryol, the same depot that was set ablaze by Ukrainian drones earlier in the month.
The Washington-based think-tank’s authors said that Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SZRU) claimed that “international sanctions preventing Russia from accessing Western equipment and components, Ukrainian drone strikes, reduced Russian oil exports, and high Russian loan rates have caused Russian oil refineries to increase their downtime in 2024. The SZRU reported that Russian oil refineries experienced a total downtime that prevented the facilities from refining 41.1 million tons of oil in 2024 after having only experienced a total downtime worth 35.9 million tons of oil in 2023.”
Satellite imagery collected by the ISW throughout October 2024 indicates that the Russian military has been building additional shelters for aircraft at several air bases, including in Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Krasnodar Krai; Kursk City; and occupied Belbek, Crimea, in an attempt to shield aircraft from the regular threat of Ukraine’s drone attacks.
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