NATO-based military contractors fail Ukraine despite hefty payments

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: News websites
29 Aug 2023 19:35

The Ukrainian Defense Minister confirms that contractors in NATO countries have failed to deliver weapons and equipment despite signing contracts worth millions.

Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov talks to the media after the meeting of the 'Ukraine Defense Contact Group' at Ramstein Air Base in Ramstein, Germany, on Friday, April 21, 2023. (AP)

Defense companies in NATO nations that have signed weapons and military equipment contracts, worth millions of dollars, with Ukraine have failed to deliver.

In 2022, Alfa, a Polish company, signed contracts with Kiev worth approximately $95 million. However, as Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov confirmed, Alfa has so far failed to act on these contracts.

Reznikov stated that "this firm is indeed one of the foreign companies that has signed contracts with the Ministry of Defense," and despite the multiple arbitration claims that have already been filed against Alfa, Kiev saw no deliverables.

According to the Minister, "There are many such firms, and, unfortunately, not all of them were able to fulfill the signed contracts, even the influential players in the market," adding that "there are also Ukrainian firms that didn't deliver promised supplies, and American ones."

The Minister even revealed that Alfa "offered us [Ukraine] other types of projectiles; we are now studying whether they are suitable for us. And then we will either have them delivered, or we will demand the advance payment to be returned."

This revelation comes at a time when the Ukrainian government has been scrambling for equipment and weapons to continue its counteroffensive which has so far not made any significant change in the power balance of the war in Ukraine as it was initially anticipated.

NATO failed in Ukraine, couldn't subdue Russia: Former Italian PM

NATO's strategy in Ukraine has failed to generate the desired outcome, rather Russia was able to defeat the military coalition's declared objectives to destroy the Russian economy and disintegrate its military despite record sanctions and historic collective pressure, former Italian Prime Minister and leader of the opposition 5 Stelle (Five Star) Movement party, Giuseppe Conte, said earlier Saturday,

"The strategy pursued so far in NATO, based on constant military supplies to Ukraine and the escalation logic, has not resulted in the desired military defeat of Russia. Quite the opposite. There was no defeat of the Russian army in Bakhmut [Artemovsk], no disintegration of its military units, no retreat during the Ukrainian counteroffensive," the prominent opposition figure wrote on Facebook.

Economic sanctions against Russia "did not lead to its bankruptcy and did not undermine its economy," he said, adding that bets to internally destabilize the country have failed "in the face of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's strengthening leadership and growing domestic consensus."

Furthermore, Western attempts to corner Russia and isolate it from the rest of the world "by no means become a reality," he continued.

"On the contrary. The 15th summit of the BRICS group, led by Russia and China, has just wrapped up, with the concrete prospect of its further expansion in 2024, which will cover 45% of the world's population and 38.2% of global GDP."

The war in Ukraine "exposed the European Union's inability to develop an effective common strategy and to exercise independent political and economic leadership," Conte said, noting that he believed that European leaders were subordinate to Washington.