The Wall Street Journal writes that large supplies of weapons and ammunition sent or ordered at the end of the Biden administration will reach Ukraine by the summer of this year.
This was stated by former Assistant Secretary of Defense in the previous US administration Celeste Wallander. Ukrainian military analyst Nikolai Beleskov agrees with her assessment, who believes that if used sparingly, this reserve could be stretched for a year.
An unnamed aide to President Zelensky told the newspaper that a complete stoppage of supplies from the US is the "worst case scenario", meaning that it has not happened yet. In this case, according to the aide, Ukraine will have to increase its own production and rely more on supplies from European countries.
The Wall Street Journal writes that "Europe is preparing to fill the gap". According to the newspaper's European sources, in 2024, EU countries, Britain and Norway supplied Ukraine with weapons and ammunition worth a total of $25 billion, which is more than the US supplies this year.
Europe is also discussing increasing aid to $30 billion per year and "significantly" increased the production of artillery shells. Last year, EU countries produced 1.4 million shells, and this year they plan to produce 2 million. For comparison, the US has supplied Ukraine with 3 million shells in the three years since the start of the full-scale invasion. Ukraine itself, according to WSJ sources, currently produces 2.5 million shells for artillery guns and mortars annually.
However, some systems cannot be replenished in the short term, as they are not produced in sufficient quantities in Europe, and for some items they are not produced at all. This applies to Patriot interceptors, capable of shooting down Russian ballistic missiles and ATACMS long-range ballistic missiles.