EU rearms Ukraine as calls mount for higher defence spending

EU members shun Hungary’s objections to a collective package stall bilateral military aid for Ukraine.

As roughly $137bn in military and financial aid to Ukraine remained stalled in Washington and Brussels, individual European allies began to make bilateral pledges worth billions to ensure that Ukraine will remain capable of resisting Russia this year.

That resistance remained in place during the past week, with ground troops holding a 1,000km (621-mile) line against Russian assaults in what their commander called an “active defence”, and Ukraine’s Air Force seizing an opportunity to destroy one of only a handful of Russian reconnaissance planes.

Ukraine destroyed the Beriev A-50 on Monday somewhere over the Sea of Azov, killing all of its crew, its commander in chief said. An Ilyushin-22 command aircraft was also effectively destroyed, though it managed to land. Ukraine’s southern command said it was one of only three operational such aircraft and helped direct missile attacks.

Russia had fired 40 drones and missiles into Ukraine two days earlier. Ukrainian defenders shot down eight missiles and said they disabled another 20 or so with electronic jamming. As if to prove missile capability after the downing of the A-50, Russia attacked again on Wednesday, wounding 17 people in central Kharkiv.

Events in the air were perhaps the most kinetic in a week of static front lines. Ukrainian commander of ground forces Oleksandr Syrskiy said his troops were on “active defence” as Russia pressed for full control of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and the reconquest of Kharkiv and Kherson.