Ukraine becomes 'ideal testing ground' for Western weapons

"Testing ground" of the West

In an interview with the Financial Times (FT) recently, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said that Western countries supporting Kyiv "can really see whether their weapons are effective, how effective they are and whether they need to be upgraded" in Ukraine. "For the military industry in the world, you cannot find a better testing ground," he said in an interview published on July 5.

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The fighting in Ukraine is the first time NATO weapons have been used on a large scale against Russian forces, and it is giving Western militaries invaluable insight into the effectiveness of their weapons, including how different systems can be combined. For example, the US-Norway-developed NASAMS air defence system has been deployed alongside Germany’s new IRIS-T air defence system in Ukraine. According to the FT, this is the first time that these two different NATO-class weapons systems have been tested together.

Ukraine thành 'bãi thử lý tưởng' cho vũ khí phương Tây - Ảnh 1. — An attack UAV model was introduced at a competition in Kyiv (Ukraine) on June 24.

At the same time, the West has gained a lot of knowledge about how Russian systems operate “at a tactical level” thanks to the war in Ukraine, according to Jack Watling, an expert at the Royal United Services Institute (a London-based think tank). “But on the other hand, the West has exposed a lot of its capabilities to Russia and China, so it will have to change the way some of its equipment operates to maintain its competitive advantage,” Watling said.

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Minister Reznikov also acknowledged that Russian electronic warfare systems can intercept GPS-guided artillery shells as well as multiple launch rocket systems such as HIMARS. "Russia comes up with countermeasures, we inform our partners, and they come up with new countermeasures against the Russian ones… It's like a pendulum that keeps swinging. This is a technological war," Reznikov said.

Technology race

Ukraine itself is in a wartime technology race with Russia, and part of that race is Kyiv’s efforts to develop an “army of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).” According to a Reuters report on July 5, the Ukrainian government in late June awarded $3 million to three teams of experts who were said to have presented the best UAVs or electronic warfare technology to counter Iran’s “Shahed” suicide drones.

“This is truly an unprecedented UAV war,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who is also the minister in charge of digital transformation, told Reuters. The number of companies producing and selling UAVs to the Ukrainian government has increased from seven to 40, and is expected to reach 50 by the end of 2023, Fedorov said. A Ukrainian defense ministry official said the goal was to buy more than 200,000 large attack and reconnaissance drones this year.

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Regarding the situation on the battlefield, Russia's Sputnik Radio on July 5 quoted Igor Kimakovsky, an advisor to the acting leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), saying that Kyiv forces had launched a third counterattack ahead of the NATO summit in Lithuania (July 11-12). According to Igor Kimakovsky, Ukraine chose the Zaporizhizhia province in southern Ukraine as the main direction in this effort, while organizing a diversionary attack in the direction of Luhansk province.

Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of planning an attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the province of the same name. The Kremlin said on July 5 that the risk of Ukraine carrying out a "sabotage" attack on the plant was very high and that Russia had begun taking measures to counter such a threat, according to RIA Novosti news agency. Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told French President Emmanuel Macron that Russia was preparing for "dangerous provocations" at Europe's largest nuclear power plant.

What advantage does Ukraine have in counterattacking when it possesses a series of Western weapons?

Russia reaffirms conditions for extending grain deal

The Russian Foreign Ministry said on July 4 that one of the conditions for Russia to agree to extend the Black Sea Grain Initiative (which expires on July 17) is for Russia’s Rosselkhozbank to return to the SWIFT international payment system, according to RT. However, Moscow said that its current demands have not been met, so it “sees no basis” to continue the agreement.

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