“Many countries will refuse to purchase Western weapons that have proven to be ineffective on the battlefield,” said Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the State Duma, in a Telegram channel. “The only thing this will definitely affect is that many countries will opt out from buying advertised American and other Western weapons, which have turned out to be inefficient in combat,” Volodin wrote.
“Any new weapons Washington and Brussels decide to send to Zelensky and his associates will no longer be able to affect the outcome of the special military operation,” Volodin wrote.
Russia had already notified the nations that make up NATO regarding providing armaments to Ukraine. Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, reiterated that any shipments carrying weapons destined for Ukraine would be regarded as a legitimate target for Russia to take action against. According to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the nations that are members of NATO and provide weaponry to Ukraine are “playing with fire.” The press secretary for the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, observed that the flow of weaponry to Ukraine from the West does not contribute to the success of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations and will harm the outcome of such negotiations.
Lavrov further said that the United States and NATO are actively participating in the fight in Ukraine by supplying weapons and training soldiers on the soil of the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and other countries. Lavrov made this claim about the fact that the United States and NATO are directly involved in the crisis in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive in southern Donetsk, Artemivsk, and, most notably, the Zaporizhzhia directions got underway on June 4th. The Ukrainian capital of Kyiv had troops trained by NATO and was equipped with Western hardware, including the much-publicised Leopard tanks. The West was thrown into a frenzy after seeing footage of these tanks engaged in combat, with several on fire.
The comments made by President Vladimir Putin on July 21st indicated that the Ukrainian forces had not achieved any substantial gains, “at least not yet,” and that Western leaders are “obviously unsatisfied” with the progress of the counteroffensive. He stated that “colossal injected resources” or armament supplies such as tanks, artillery, armoured vehicles, and missiles, as well as the entry of thousands of mercenaries and consultants, are not helping Kyiv in any way. He also claimed that the influx of advisors is not aiding Kyiv.
On July 11th, the Minister of Defence of Ukraine, Sergey Shoygu, stated that the city of Kyiv had lost more than 26,000 soldiers, 1,244 tanks, thousands of other military equipment, 21 planes, and six helicopters, including 17 Leopard tanks and 12 Bradley vehicles. Confirmation of these huge losses came in the form of an emergency shipment of new batches of equipment from the United States.
