Ukraine’s Zelenskiy calls for faster arms supplies

KYIV — President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that vital U.S. weapons were starting to arrive in Ukraine in small amounts but deliveries needed to be faster as advancing Russian invasion forces were trying to take advantage.

Zelenskiy told a joint press conference in Kyiv alongside NATO Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg that the situation on the battlefield directly depended on the speed of ammunition supplies to Ukraine.

“Timely support for our army. Today I don’t see anything positive on this point yet. There are supplies, they have slightly begun, this process needs to be sped up,” he said.

The United States approved a Us$61-billion aid package last week, ending six months of congressional deadlock and raising Kyiv’s hopes that its critically low stocks of artillery shells will soon be replenished.

Stoltenberg, who held talks with Zelenskiy during his third wartime visit to Kyiv, told Ukrainians that NATO members had failed to live up to their promises of military aid in recent months, but that the flow of arms and ammunition would increase.

“I will ... be very honest with President Zelenskiy and also with the Rada (Ukrainian parliament) that NATO allies have not delivered what we have promised over the last months,” Stoltenberg said on the train taking him into Kyiv on Monday.

The NATO chief pointed to the U.S. aid bill and an announcement last week by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of a “record high” commitment to Kyiv.

He also noted Germany had agreed to provide another Patriot air defence system to Ukraine while the Netherlands had boosted its military aid to Kyiv.