To win the war and secure its freedom and its existence, Ukraine needs tanks, it needs weapons, it needs supplies and, above all, it urgently needs ammunition. The requests for help are constant, almost desperate, but the response, in Europe and the United States, is that production cannot cope. NATO promised last week to tighten the screws as much as possible on manufacturers, and some capitals have signed private contracts to ensure more work in factories, and now the EU is finalizing how to supply and pay for bullets, shells and shells. “Russian artillery fires 50,000 shots a day. Ukraine has to be at the same level,” said the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, at a Council meeting with the 27 foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday. .
The decision has not been made, but it should be made in the coming weeks, when the Defense headlines, who have a scheduled appointment in Sweden, are seen. Estonia has put the idea and the urgency on the table and there are different possibilities. It could be done through what is known as the European Peace Facility, the fund with which the EU has already allocated more than 3,000 million euros to military assistance. Each country ships to Ukraine and is compensated. It can be done bilaterally, but there are few reservations after one year. Or perhaps through something similar to centralized pool purchasing that was used with vaccines, as the Baltics and Poland are calling for. It would be about 4,000 million euros, according to estimates by the Estonian government, and although the political debate seems to be on track, the technical aspect is missing. “Today not all have spoken, but a vast majority of countries have. And of course no one has declared themselves against it,” said the Spanish minister, José Manuel Albares, at the end of the meeting. “Now the defense ministers must pronounce themselves. We have had a political debate and it is necessary to see the operation,” he added.
Borrell, reasonably satisfied after the meeting, has said that he will discuss the “fastest” route for this purchase and delivery in the meeting that he will have this Tuesday with the NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, and the Ukrainian Minister Dymitro Kuleba, after having canceled his presence in Brussels this Monday for security and agenda reasons. They will also talk about the resolution that Kiev’s allies are preparing for the UN General Assembly this week, after in the last one, in September, too many countries put themselves in profile so as not to anger Russia.
“We have discussed how to intensify efforts,” said the Spaniard, assuring that he will present concrete and detailed proposals to increase the industry’s capacity at the beginning of March. He believes that the best, urgent and vital thing to save Ukrainian lives is to share the ammunition that the 27 have or will have and then replenish the national arsenals with what is bought later. The war before was about mobility, said the Spaniard, and now it is about artillery, which consumes a lot of ammunition, 50,000 pieces a day on the Russian side, so it is necessary to do whatever it takes to provide ammunition, for tanks and artillery, immediately .
The ministers of the 27 have also approved the inclusion of 32 people, including magistrates, deputies, security officers, prison wardens and two ministers with powers over the Islamic Revolutionary Guard for the repression of democratic protests in the country. With this new package, the total number of individuals on the community blacklist reaches 196, together with 33 entities, who cannot travel to the EU and whose assets, if they exist, will be frozen.
Those on the list include Iran’s Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance and Education, the Deputy Commander and Spokesman of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the co-founders of the Ravin Academy, members of Parliament “who support the violent repression, members of the police, the judiciary in various parts of the country, and prison directors and guards,” says the official statement issued.
The message, which has been repeated for more than half a year, is a request, or demand, to the Iranian authorities to end the violent repression of the protests, immediately stop the arbitrary arrests “and release all those unjustly detained”. The foreign ministers, in their statement, also called on Iran “to end the practice of imposing and carrying out death sentences against protesters, revoke the death sentences pronounced and guarantee due process to all detainees.”
As for the members of the Revolutionary Guard, which, as the German minister recalled at the exit, are not part of the EU’s list of terrorist organizations, the EU has chosen to punish the deputy commander Ali Fadavi and the spokesman , Ramezan Sharif. Berlin advocates changing its status, but as the Spanish high representative has reiterated, in order for it to be possible, a state court should first take the step.
Sanctions for collaboration with Russia are still underway, although they are channeled elsewhere. The tenth package of measures proposed last week has been discussed by ambassadors and ministers, and Brussels hopes to be able to approve it in a few days. “It was not planned to make the decision today, it is something technical. Ours has been a political debate but there are no fundamental divisions, so it should be in the next few days,” said Minister Albares. This tenth package also includes specific punishments for Iran for providing war material and for helping Moscow avoid sanctions by providing products that should not reach Russia.
“Sanctions are not only necessary, they are unavoidable. Certainly Iran doesn’t like it but we have no choice but to because events are what they are. In my call yesterday I told you that you have to stop your military support for Russia. Iran will do it. He denies it, but we have sufficient evidence. They have to release the detained Europeans and fulfill their commitments,” the high representative concluded.
But the Iranian front has many sides. Borrell has confirmed this Monday that he has asked Iran to respect its “obligations” in the face of the “worrying news” that it is enriching uranium. This weekend it has been published that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has found traces of uranium enriched to 84%, a level dangerously close to 90%, the level necessary to manufacture nuclear weapons. There is an investigation underway, simultaneous to the negotiation that for two years has been trying to save the almost impossible nuclear agreement with the country, which also requires the approval of the US or Russia.
Borrell has explained that he has conveyed the message during a telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, but has acknowledged that the issue is very delicate. Tehran denies it but nobody trusts it. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has never tried to enrich uranium above 60%,” the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEAI), Behruz Kamalvandí, told the Iranian media, Efe explained.
In his press conference after the Council, the Spanish has asked for caution. “Nuclear issues are complex and sensitive issues. Those who say that there has been an enrichment are reports whose provenance and reliability I do not know as well. That enriching Uranus is more complex than it seems. It is not something that can be said lightly. For We have an observer for this, the International Agency, which has all the capacity and which is the one that has to say what is happening. We have asked them and they will answer in the course of this week. Until I have a report, I will not pronounce myself “, he warned.
The nuclear pact negotiations are in winter slumber. It is not possible to move forward given the environment of circumstances that have occurred. “We have no interest in pushing Iran towards greater cooperation with Russia, but it is clear that what has happened and its contribution to the Russian military effort has paralyzed a negotiation process that was at its core, before the summer, ripe. It is now frozen”, lamented the Spanish politician.
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