The new 13th package of sanctions against Russia, which the European Union plans to introduce around the time of the second anniversary of the launch of Putin’s war against Ukraine, is likely to the weakest so far.

Radio Liberty journalist Rikard Jozwiak researched and analyzed the future package of sanctions, before writing about this on his X (formerly Twitter) page.

According to Jozwiak, the next package of EU sanctions against Russia will consist only of a ban on issuing visas and the freezing of assets relating to 250 individuals and legal entities.

“To coincide with the second anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine it is set to be the weakest and most unambitious package to date,” Jozwiak concluded.

In January, according to Bloomberg, the European Union began discussing the next package of sanctions against Russia, which it is going to approve by February 24, the second anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine

​​​​​​​ Poland, together with the Baltic countries, wanted the new package of sanctions to include Belarus in order to prevent Russia from circumventing EU restrictions with the help of Minsk.

It seems now that is unlikely to happen, at least in this round of sanctions.

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After the 2010 UK general election, the incoming finance minister found a terse but painfully accurate note from his outgoing predecessor: “I’m afraid there is no money.” This was an all-too-direct warning of the need for tough decisions and deep spending cuts across the UK government.

With another election coming, most likely in 2024, the next UK defense secretary probably will receive a similar budget-related handover note: “I am sorry, the UK has no air defenses.”

Despite a resurgence of spending on integrated air and missile defense systems (IAMD)—radar, missiles and guns—for Ukraine, this message also echoes across Europe. The capability, seen for the last two or more decades as something of a Cinderella, has only now moved up the priority lists for equipment spending because of three distinct drivers.

First is a lack of spending on air and missile defense since the end of the Cold War because of a perceived lack of air threat. Military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in particular were conducted with total air supremacy. We kidded ourselves that this would likely always be the case—the war in Ukraine has shown how false this assumption was and is.

Many European countries (e.g., France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands and Spain) have essentially the same medium-to-long-range missiles they ordered in the 1980s and received in the 1990s and early 2000s. But the numbers and density of European IAMD systems are a fraction of what they were in the 1970s and 1980s, when NATO deployed a dense “SAM Belt” of more than 40 Raytheon HAWK and Patriot (see photo) batteries in what was then West Germany, backed by multiple air bases with fighters on alert. The UK also had a “belt” of 16 Bloodhound missile bases covering the North Sea. Today, continental European nations can deploy only about 15 Patriot batteries in Central Europe; the UK has no such medium-range systems and only a handful of shorter-range systems.

Second, the air threat has also changed, and thus so has the acceptance of the need for multiple layers of defense. After the Cold War, the threat for Europe evolved from an air-breathing one (i.e., aircraft) to short-range ballistic missiles—the Scuds and their ilk that were first used against coalition forces and Israel in the 1990-91 Gulf War. The 2003-11 occupation of Iraq highlighted a need for a capability against unguided rockets and artillery, but this was met only with small numbers of point defense systems.

The war in Ukraine has demonstrated the necessity (and effectiveness) of dense, Cold War-style layered air defenses: the full gamut of long-range surveillance radars, long-range missiles and a wide spectrum of (often duplicating) medium- and short-range missile and gun systems. These have even included the resurrection of former German Gepard tank-mounted 35mm anti-aircraft systems first developed in the 1960s that served until 2010. Come back, M247 Sergeant York—all is forgiven!

The Ukraine war has also illustrated a further evolution of the threat that has come as an unpleasant surprise to many defense ministries—the proliferation of relatively slow but very cheap UAVs and suicide drones. These greatly complicate the air defense challenge, driving a need for denser detection networks as well as making the exchange ratio nearly prohibitive: a missile costing several million dollars to kill a drone that may have cost $1,000 or less. This has caused a resurgence of interest in gun systems for point defense, as the cost per kill should be far closer to the cost of your enemy’s drone.

Agency Partners analysis points to European spending on air defense systems of up to $80 billion by 2030. While much has been ordered (such as the Patriot for Germany, Poland, Romania, Sweden and Switzerland), large requirements remain uncommitted. The UK is the single biggest outlier, with a likely £15-20 billion ($19-25 billion) requirement for new systems—four Eurofighters on quick reaction alert will simply not cut it.

A Ukrainian commander said his unit is desperately short on soldiers: 40 infantry troops doing the fighting of 200

Sinéad Baker
Feb 8, 2024, 3:34 AM PSTShare
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REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

• A Ukrainian commander said his unit has less than 40 infantry troops, but should have more than 200.
• Another commander told the Washington Post said his unit was similarly short of fighters.
• Tensions are growing in Ukraine over getting more troops to the front.

A Ukrainian battalion commander said his frontline unit has fewer than 40 infantry soldiers, a small fraction of what it should have.

Speaking to The Washington Post, the commander, who was not named as he was not given permission to speak to the media, said his unit should have more than 200 troops when fully equipped.

Another commander, in a separate infantry brigade, told the Post said his unit was similarly short of fighters.

Ukraine has been struggling to replace its frontline troops.

Oleksandr, another battalion commander, told the Post that his battalion had only been sent five new soldiers in the past five months, not including those who returned after being injured.

He also said that infantry personnel were being made to stay in their posts too long without being rotated out.

"They need to be replaced by someone," he said.

"There is no one to replace them, so they sit there more, their morale drops, they get sick or suffer frostbite," he added. "The front is cracking. The front is crumbling. Why can't we replace them? Because we don't have people; nobody comes to the army."

The commander in chief of Ukraine's armed forces, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, told President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that their country needs around 500,000 new soldiers, two people with knowledge of the exchange told the Post.

Zaluzhny has publicly stated that Russia has an advantage in its ability to get more troops, while Ukraine cannot "improve the manpower levels of our armed forces without the use of unpopular measures."

Zelenskyy has questioned if Ukraine has enough money to mobilize hundreds of thousands more soldiers, and said he wants to see more plans before he could advocate for such a move.

Tensions have been growing between the two men, and Zelenskyy could be looking to replace Zaluzhny amid disagreements over conscription and other issues.

One advantage Russia has over Ukraine is its significantly larger population. President Vladimir Putin's iron grip also means that Russia can implement unpopular conscription measures with less fear of societal blowback.

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