RZESZOW, Poland—In the space of two weeks, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has set off one of the largest and fastest arms transfers in history.
By road and rail, the Czech Republic sent 10,000 rocket-propelled grenades to Ukraine’s defenders last week alone. In Poland, the provincial airport of Rzeszow located about 60 miles from the Ukrainian border has been so crowded with military cargo jets that on Saturday some flights were briefly diverted until airfield space became available.
On the country’s highways, police vehicles are escorting military transport trucks to the border, with other convoys slipping into Ukraine via snow-covered back roads through the mountains.
Ukrainians in Kyiv unloaded a shipment of military aid, delivered in February as part of U.S. security assistance.
PHOTO: VALENTYN OGIRENKO/REUTERS
The race to deliver arms to Ukraine is emerging as a supply operation with few historical parallels. Western allies, having ruled out putting troops on the ground in Ukraine, have been attempting to equip the country’s thinly spread and outmatched military, some of its soldiers fighting without boots.
With Russian warships holding the Black Sea coast, and Ukraine’s airspace contested, the U.S. is rushing to truck weapons overland before Russia chokes off the roads as well. Pentagon officials said most of what will total $350 million in arms and assistance the Biden administration pledged late last month has been delivered. Congress is considering authorizing billions more. The Defense Department has described its efforts as unprecedented.
Governments once reluctant to transfer arms and antagonize Russia are joining the fray. Sweden, though historically nonaligned, has pledged 5,000 antitank weapons. Berlin—which only three weeks ago was blocking Estonia from transferring German-made howitzers to Ukraine—is now sending more than 2,000 antitank and antiaircraft weapons. Italy, long a passive player in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, has also promised weapons, and Spain has offered grenade launchers.
Ukrainians Seek Safety as Russia Presses Its Attack
The mass flight from the fighting in Ukraine continued as Russian forces launched strikes on cities and military targets.
Residents fled Irpin, Ukraine, on Monday.People leaving Irpin, Ukraine, located just west of the capital of Kyiv, on foot Tuesday.Rescuers inspected a school building in Chernihiv, Ukraine, that was damaged by shelling, in a photo provided by Ukrainian authorities on Monday.A woman was carried across a river under a damaged bridge in Irpin, Ukraine, on Monday.Refugees from the fighting in Ukraine outside an immigration office in Brussels, Belgium, on Monday.A reception center for refugees from Ukraine at Poznan University of Technology in Poznan, Poland, on Monday.An elderly woman was evacuated from Irpin, Ukraine, by ambulance on Tuesday.A Polish soldier helped a child off a train from Lviv, Ukraine, at the station in Przemysl, Poland, on Monday.Men received weapons training in Lviv, Ukraine, on Monday.A resident took shelter in the basement of a building in Irpin, Ukraine, on Monday.
People leaving Irpin, Ukraine, located just west of the capital of Kyiv, on foot Tuesday.MANU BRABO FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
1 of 10
•••••
The allied effort is buttressed by ordinary citizens in Europe and the U.S., who say they are buying hunting-grade gear online—to circumvent rules against shipping military equipment—and funneling it to friends headed into Ukraine. In Warsaw, a 67-year-old woman is in charge of smuggling night-vision goggles to the country’s defenders. Packed hotels near the Polish-Ukrainian border cater to men asking each other how they can ship body armor to major cities, before Russian troops seize the roads.
Still, Ukrainians say it isn’t enough. In videos posted to social media from his office in Kyiv, with the Ukrainian capital almost encircled by Russian forces, President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged the West to send more weapons and enforce a no-fly zone to stop Russia from carrying out more air attacks on civilians. He pleaded last weekend to members of Congress for combat jets and missiles.
Such appeals are coming not just from the top. Frontline fighters in Ukraine’s Territorial Defense units have used social media to put out a shopping list of their needs, including helmets, binoculars, range finders along with more basic needs such as instant noodles or Q-Tips.
“We need more,” said Andriy Malets, a 53-year-old entrepreneur who signed up to help defend the town of Kryvyi Rih but said he was forced to wait because his local unit has five volunteers for every available gun. Instead, he said, people in Kryvyi Rih now spend their time making Molotov cocktails.
With many types of military aid not yet arrived, many civilians in Ukraine are making Molotov cocktails.
PHOTO: LORENA SOPÉNA/ZUMA PRESS
The infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars in weaponry has little precedent in modern times, said Filip Bryjka, a security analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs. There hasn’t been a Western arms push of such speed and scale in Europe since President Harry S. Truman asked Congress to send $400 million in military and economic assistance into Greece and Turkey in the first months of the Cold War, said Mr. Bryjka, who wrote a recent analysis of Poland’s role in arms transfers to Ukraine.
The dollar value, U.S. and allied officials say, is almost certain to grow if the war continues. On Capitol Hill, legislators are considering a bill for when the $350 million designated for Ukraine runs out. That legislation provides $12 billion for Ukraine and its Eastern European allies, roughly half of which would be dedicated to supporting Ukraine militarily.
Ukrainian officials, in negotiations with Poland and the U.S., have pushed for NATO allies to provide Soviet-era jet fighters that Ukrainian pilots could fly, alongside more antitank missiles, Turkish drones, and heat-seeking missiles capable of shooting down combat helicopters or planes.
U.S. troops have set up bases at Rzeszow. Poland and at two small airfields, both not far from Poland’s border to Ukraine.
PHOTO: SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES
“We are happy but we are not satisfied,” said one senior Ukrainian official. “What we have is not enough because Russian troops are still in Ukraine.”
U.S. officials warn that the pace of resupply would likely slow if Russian forces grab control of the highways and cities of western Ukraine, where the weapons are received from convoys rolling in from Poland, Slovakia and Romania. But judging the pace of Russia’s advance and when the supply lines may be cut is hard to assess, defense officials have said.
A large amount of the gear going to Ukraine comes from NATO members in Central Europe that were once part of the former Soviet Union or allied with it. The U.S. says that Washington and its NATO allies have sent 17,000 antitank weapons into Ukraine, mostly provided by the Czech military.
Civilians fled the city of Sumy as Ukraine and Russia agreed on a limited cease-fire there; residents said soldiers ransacked their homes in Irpin; Ukrainian President Zelensky posted defiant video messages. Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Some of the efforts have been financed by a crowdfunding campaign, which raised $20 million from individual donors in the Czech Republic. The country’s government put up another $30 million to buy arms that have virtually all been dispatched.
“Everything that Ukraine’s allies ask us to do, we do it ASAP,” said Czech Deputy Defense Minister Tomas Kopecny. “When it’s used in Ukraine it means it’s not used in our country.”
Although the transport planes and trucks are highly visible, the operation to supply Ukraine in many countries has been shrouded in secrecy. Some Central and Eastern European countries worry overt shipments could provoke Russia. “Most countries prefer not to share details because they are afraid of how Russia could react,” said Mr. Bryjka. “And they don’t want to make Russia’s intelligence work easier.”
The shipments are also operating through an area that Washington doesn’t expect to stay open much longer. Kyiv, which U.S. officials thought would fall early in the war, has held off Russian advances, allowing western militaries to ship in gear more easily than they expected.
Ukrainian women on Monday reviewed how to use weapons in case they are called to fight the Russian invasion.
PHOTO: COZZOLI/FOTOGRAMMA/ZUMA PRESS
Ukrainians living outside the country are using the same opening to drive in military gear bought with their own money to soldiers fighting in the war. While President Biden was delivering his State of the Union address last week, promising aid for Ukraine, Oksana Prysyazhnyuk, a Ukrainian energy executive in New York state, was watching, while texting friends on the front. “Maybe you can find someone who can provide helmets and bulletproof vests because the demand for them is absolutely huge,” a Ukrainian stationed near the front line texted her.
“They are going to war with bare hands,” Ms. Prysyazhnyuk said. “They don’t even have winter boots.”
One senior Ukrainian military official, who spoke Tuesday from his base outside Kyiv, disagreed. He said there were now no major equipment shortages among his troops. Asked what kind of support he would like to see from the West, he backed Mr. Zelensky’s call for a no-fly zone over Ukraine and added: “I’d like to see more Russians in graves.”
Write to Matthew Luxmoore at Matthew.Luxmoore@wsj.com, Drew Hinshaw at drew.hinshaw@wsj.com and Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com
