Ukraine is getting a lot of interesting new weapons from its allies

Ukraine is expecting new rounds of security assistance from some of its closest partners and included in these aid packages are weapons and ammunition that the embattled nation badly needs. Let’s take a look at what Kyiv is getting soon. 

The United States announced a surprise military aid package for Ukraine totaling $300 million on March 12th. Reuters reported that more artillery shells and more ammunition for Ukraine's artillery rocket systems were included. 

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An artillery shell assistance scheme spearheaded by Czechia and signed onto by more than a dozen other nations found 800,000 artillery ammuntion for Ukraine in February according to Ukrianska Pravda, but more shells have been sourced. 

The Wall Street Journal reported on March 17th that Czech officials found an additional 700,000 artillery shells Ukraine's allies could purchase for Ukraine. The shells are a mix of 300,000 Soviet and 500,000 Western rounds. 

More importantly, the latest meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on March 19th saw Germany commit to a new security assistance package worth €500 million euros or $540 million dollars in order to bolster Ukraine's defense. 

Included in the German package are 10,000 artillery shells plus the financing for 180,000 shells through the Czech initiative. But the more interesting help Berlin will be shipping to Ukraine is its Winset-1 minehunter armored vehicle. 

The Winset-1 is based on the Leopard 1 main battle tank but was designed with a much different purpose in mind, the vehicle was made to clear mines but it can also be turned into an armored recovery or engineering vehicle The Kyiv Independent reported. 

Germany will provide four of the mine-clearing versions of the Wisent-1 to Ukraine and they will be quite useful when Kyiv’s armed forces need to deal with the many minefields Russia has laid across the east and south of the country. 

Germany is also planning to send Ukraine 10 Vector reconnaissance drones, a weapon that The Kyiv Independent reported was “a hi-tech UAV designed to spot enemy troops, vehicles, and positions.”

Germany isn’t the only country sending minehunters to Ukraine. Belgium has plans to give Kyiv three Tripartite-class minehunter vessels and will provide basic training on their use with help from the Netherlands according to the Belgian news agency, Belga.

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Konflikty.pl

The minehunter ships are part of a new $412 million euro or $447 million dollar aid package for Ukraine from Belgium that was announced by Belgian Defence Minister Ludivine on March 15th. The security assistance will also include other key help as well. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By LCDR T. Scot Cregan, Public Domain

Most of the security assistance is devoted to supplying artillery ammunition but Belgium will send Ukraine 300 Lynx armored vehicles as well as armored ambulances, which is part of a joint initiative with the Netherlands and Luxembourg. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Lukas1325 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Finland is also planning to provide Ukraine with new naval vessels and is sending what The Kyiv Independent reported was “an unspecified number of unspecified boats” to its new NATO ally Romania where Ukrainians will be trained to use the vessels. 

The Finnish donation was revealed by Romanian President Klaus Iohannis in a letter to the country’s parliament according to Forbes. The news outlet also speculated about the type of boats that Finland might be sending to Ukraine. 

“The Finnish navy has a lot of armored boats: a dozen 32-ton Jehus, 38 14-ton Jurmos—plus another 17 under construction—and around 20 10-ton Uiskos. The boats transport and resupply troops across Finland’s long coastline,” David Axe of Forbes wrote. 

Pictured: the Jehu-class landing craft / Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By MKFI - Own work, Public Domain

“The Uiskos are the clearest candidates for a wartime giveaway. The decades-old boats are leaving Finnish service as newer Jehus and Jurmos arrive,” Axe continued, however, that the Uiskos would be the least useful of the three options. 

Pictured: the Uiskos-class landing craft / Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By MKFI - Own work, Public Domain

Much of the help that has been promised to Ukraine likely won’t be enough to make a major difference to the frontline, but a lot of What Kyiv is receiving will be badly needed weapons according to The Kyiv Independent, especially the forthcoming artillery shells.