Seeking arms for Ukraine, Pentagon buyers scour Eastern European factories
By John Ismay and Eric Schmitt New York Times,Updated April 25, 2022, 5:19 p.m.
“It’s the lifeblood here for the Ukrainian armed forces,” the Pentagon press secretary said of the ammunition supplies being given to Kyiv, Ukraine. Pictured here, military volunteers loaded magazines with ammunition earlier this year, in Fastiv, Ukraine.
“It’s the lifeblood here for the Ukrainian armed forces,” the Pentagon press secretary said of the ammunition supplies being given to Kyiv, Ukraine. Pictured here, military volunteers loaded magazines with ammunition earlier this year, in Fastiv, Ukraine.BRENDAN HOFFMAN/NYT
IN POLAND, NEAR THE UKRAINIAN BORDER — Just off a runway on a Polish airfield, forklifts busily emptied an Air Force C-17 transport jet of its cargo alongside a much smaller civilian propeller-driven plane, ferrying pallets of green boxes full of munitions from each to a nearby asphalt parking lot filling up with many dozens of them.
Some bore American-made weapons, while others held a variety of ordnance made in Eastern Europe — all of them representative of Ukraine’s highest priorities for military aid that would soon be loaded into a fleet of waiting tractor-trailer trucks loitering nearby for the journey into Ukraine.
The Pentagon sources much of the American-made weaponry it sends to Kyiv, Ukraine, from its own stockpiles, but relies on American defense contractors to scour Eastern European munitions factories to find newly made weapons designed by the United States’ former adversary, the Soviet Union, to fulfill President Biden’s pledges of increased military aid for Ukraine.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/04/25/world/seeking-arms-ukraine-pentagon-buyers-scour-eastern-european-factories/
