Aircraft and long-range weapons, type, quantity and delivery time will directly depend on the obligations that Ukraine will be ready to take on under the future model collective security of Europe.
The Allies are preparing to arm Ukraine after the war
The fact that such commitments are already being formulated is shown at least by the text of the signed London Declaration. Rishi Sunak and Vladimir Zelensky. This document contains a passage about joint work to prevent new Russian aggression in the future.
And the fact that Great Britain, in its plans for military assistance to Ukraine, looks into such a great “strategic depth”, at least the words of Defense Minister Ben Wallace show. He said that London is ready to provide aircraft for the Armed Forces of Ukraine after the end of the war against Russia. That is, for the security of Ukraine in the post-war period.
Moreover, since we are striving to integrate into NATO, we need to be prepared for the fact that our military, even in peacetime, will serve far beyond the borders of Ukraine to protect Alliance on the flanks.
This can be rotational missions of the ground forces and tasks within the “air police” (on the same western fighters) with the same frequency. This is what should be understood by the phrase about “obligations within the framework of collective security”.
As an illustration, even the Croats with their PzH 2000 division are now covering the Baltic countries, and now the Romanians are literally preparing to cover the F-16.
Even after the expected defeat of Russia, the issue of collective security in Europe will be more acute than ever. This will be a unique situation when, after the end of the great continental war, all states will have to build up their own armed arsenals, and not reduce, as was usual
will take place in parallel with the largest infrastructure project in the history of Europe to restore Ukraine, which the Russians are destroying.
For the time being, it is better for Ukraine to form its expectations regarding aircraft and long-range weapons from the West not from an optimistic, but a pessimistic side. That is, not F-16 or Eurofighter, but Polish and Slovak MiG-29s, upgraded to NATO standards and with wider functionality in their tasks than even in our MiG-29s.
Or – not ATACMS or SCALP, but help in scaling up the project, when our drones deliver the “Holy Fire” directly to the territory of Russia. Because several “Swifts” in one wave is, of course, good, but drones with long-range “clap” are better than several dozen in only one wave.
If pessimism in the calculations turns out to be unjustified, there will be more joy from this more.
