Page 7 - AsianOil Week 12 2023

AsianOil OPINION AsianOil

pretty big defeat for Putin,” Stephen Stapczyn- called on the EU to supply one million rounds of
ski, an energy reporter at Bloomberg said in a the crucial 155mm shells.
tweet. The combat in the Donbas is currently very
intense, Stoltenberg said, but due to the lack of
China, weapons and Nato ammunition, Ukraine is only able to fire 4,000
Notably, entirely missing from both the doc- to 7,000 a day to Russia’s 20,000 and even that
uments and the speeches was any mention of is outrunning the West’s ability to manufacture
military co-operation, although presidential enough to keep Ukraine supplied.
spokesman Dmitry Peskov did admit that the “The current rate of ammunition expendi-
two leaders did discuss Ukraine in the infor- ture is higher than the current production rate,”
mal small format meetings on the first day on Stoltenberg said. Without a significant increase
March 20. in manufacturing capacity Ukraine could face
The US condemned the Xi-Putin meet- an ammunition crisis as soon as this summer,
ing, saying that China was “not impartial” and according to some experts.
pointed out that China has not condemned That might be a problem. Nato's annual
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Xi has neither report came out on March 22 and found that
visited Kyiv nor even spoken to Ukrainian Presi- only seven of 30 member states – the US, UK,
dent Volodymyr Zelenskiy since the war started. Poland, Greece and the Baltic countries – met
Xi was expected to phone Zelenskiy during his the current defence spending target of 2% of
Russian trip, but that call did not happen. GDP in 2022. France at 1.89% and Germany at
The US was afraid that Beijing would agree 1.49% fell short, although both have committed
to supply Russia with materiel, but Beijing has to increases. Stoltenberg called on all members
been silent on the topic and so far has rebuffed to step up their spending to the recommended
Putin’s entreats, but has supplied some drones 2% at a Nato summit last July, but the call has
to the Russian military, and more importantly, been largely ignored.
microchips that allow Russia to manufacture Stoltenberg also highlighted China’s potential
more missiles. military help to Russia and said it was “equally
While Xi was in Moscow, EU leaders were important” to dissuade China from supplying
meeting to agree on increasing supplies of weapons and materiel to Russia, as Russia is
ammunition to Ukraine. As bne IntelliNews also running low on ammunition, although the
reported, Ukraine is running out of ammuni- shortage is not as acute after Russia put its econ-
tion. Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg omy on a war footing last year. ™

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