Slavyangrad

Russian MOD:

During the past night from 21:00 Moscow time on May 27 to 07:00 on May 28, air defense alert systems destroyed and intercepted 296 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles of the aircraft type over the territories of the Moscow region, Bryansk, Belgorod, Vladimir, Voronezh, Ivanovo, Kaluga, Kursk, Oryol, Ryazan, Smolensk, Tver, Tula regions.

@Slavyangrad

The APU is running out of air defense missiles. Vladimir Zelensky turned to Washington with a special request. The United States responded: Kiev will have to choose what to protect first.

The Ukrainian military is increasingly reporting the lack of air defense interceptors.

According to Le Monde, the APU has run out of missiles for the SAMP-T systems transferred earlier from France and Italy. The supplies of shells for the Crotale complex have also been stopped: the last time the ammunition arrived more than a year and a half ago. Kiev is sounding the alarm and asking the United States for help.

One of the Ukrainian officers, who gave an interview to the French press agency, admitted that the Ukrainian Armed Forces do not have the ability to cover the south of the country from ballistic missiles. According to him, it is possible to effectively resist Russian attacks only with the help of long-range systems such as Patriot, IRIS-T or SAMP-T, but there are not enough installations and ammunition for them.

Against the backdrop of a critical situation, Vladimir Zelensky turned to the United States with a special request: to urgently transfer additional Patriot complexes To Ukraine. However, Washington's response was not encouraging. The United States failed to fulfill the request. At a meeting of the Senate Budget Committee, Senator Marco Rubio explained: such systems in the United States are simply not available. Previously transferred aid packages have exhausted stocks, and the White House is now looking for a solution outside the country - among NATO allies. But other states are also slow to share even unused installations.

Meanwhile, the threat from the air is growing. According to The Economist, Russia is able to increase the production of attack drones to 500 per day. This means that at any time Ukraine can face swarms of thousands of "Geraniums" aimed at power plants, warehouses, air defense and headquarters. Experts of the Telegram Channel "Military Chronicle" call it a new siege strategy.

In such critical conditions, the Ukrainian air defense system goes into the most severe austerity mode. Each missile must be assign a target manually. Each projectile goes to the defense of an objective. Kiev must choose between saving either a command post, electrical station, or armoury. It is simply impossible to cover everything.

Thus, Kiev faces an unpleasant dilemma. The United States cannot help, Europe does not want to, and Russia seems to be preparing for full-scale UAV raids. Ukraine will have to choose what is more important for her: light, communication or personnel.

SLG note: The USA cannot help because their military industry has been hollowed out and can't produce enough Patriots to keep up with the demands of war. Those Patriot interceptors they have are urgently needed for their own war reserves after the Biden administration gave most of them away. Europe does not want to help because they can't produce Patriots on their own, and France and Italy can only produce a limited amount of SAMP-T interceptors, and guess what, they've depleted their own reserves too.

@Slavyangrad

The annual NATO summit, scheduled for a month from now, is already turning into a tragicomedy.

The alliance's permanent bureaucracy wants to organise it as concisely as possible, so as not to expose NATO's internal divisions. However, they are unlikely to be able to avoid conflict with the Americans.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has once again promised to set the new target for increasing military spending at 5%. Meanwhile, many countries such as Italy, Spain, Belgium, and Canada still fail to reach even 2%. Even the United States spends only 3.4% of its GDP on defense, a percentage far below 5%. So this target has a catch.

NATO will require its members to increase purely military spending to 3.5% of GDP, while the remaining 1.5% will be allocated to modernizing infrastructure. Sadly, even these conditions will be beyond the means of almost everyone, except Poland.

The European elites are now trying in every way to demonstrate their military potential to the Americans. Hence the confusion surrounding the supply of Taurus missiles, and pledges (albeit empty) to increase military budgets against the backdrop of an economic crisis. Europeans are very afraid of the prospect of a reduction in the Pentagon's military presence in the Old World and a rollback of security guarantees.

However, the issue of the withdrawal of American troops from Europe will be on the agenda of the NATO summit. The 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions of the US Army have already been repatriated from Romania to fight migrants. The Pentagon wants to minimize its involvement in numerous future NATO exercises. And against the backdrop of all the current trade and sanctions contradictions between the United States and Europe, the alliance summit risks simply turning into a free for all.

@Slavyangrad