It’s time for Britain and its Nato allies to give Ukraine the weapons

Just over five weeks ago, President Putin began an aggressive invasion on Ukraine. It’s already obvious that he’s lost.

He expected Russian soldiers would sweep everything in their path and occupy all of Ukraine in a matter of days.

Its right to exist as a sovereign nation (which Putin rejects) would be soon destroyed as he pushed it into his foolish goal of a Greater Russia governed from Moscow with a puppet government in Kyiv at best.

Putin’s ideal has become a nightmare. His war dead and shattered armour litter the Ukrainian ground, shattering his aspirations of crushing the country. He just does not have the reserves or reinforcements to compensate for his tremendous losses.

However, President Putin’s defeat is not the same as President Zelensky’s win. It is time for the United Kingdom and its NATO partners to provide Ukraine and its powerful military with the resources it requires to ensure success. It’s rather astounding that we can even consider such a course of action.

I wrote on those pages two days after the Russian invasion began, ‘As you read this, Russian soldiers might have have captured Kyiv… if not, its collapse will be days, if not hours away.’ I’ve never felt happier to be so incorrect.

I had grossly exaggerated the Russian military’s combat capability and grossly misjudged the Ukrainian military’s resilience, training (by Britain, America, and Canada), and bravery.

It’s not much consolation that practically every Western military and intelligence professional (incorrectly) said the same thing.

Not only has Ukraine halted much of Russia’s advance, but it is now waging counterattacks in critical locations, particularly around Kyiv, and the invaders are retreating. So much so that, as of this weekend, the Ukrainian capital is no longer under Russian control.

The Kremlin has acknowledged reality. The Russian military stated last Tuesday that it was ‘fundamentally reducing’ the soldiers it had sent to seize Kyiv. Some speculated that this was a trick, that they would retreat just to reorganise and return with more power and ferocity.

In truth, they are not in a position to do so, and the retreat is becoming a rout in certain areas. Russia is fleeing the north in large numbers, abandoning much of its equipment and even leaving behind isolated pockets of Russian troops, on which Ukrainian forces are rapidly closing in.

Heavy armour is being brought out by flatbed railway trucks, implying that they are not taking a brief rest along the road.

This is a watershed moment for western Ukraine. It means Putin will have no chance of persuading his fellow dictator in neighbouring Belarus, the thuggish Alexander Lukashenko, to send in his army to aid the invasion, which was probably unlikely anyway because Western intelligence believes the Belarusian army would have mutinied if ordered to attack Ukraine.

It might also spell a respite for the magnificent Black Sea port of Odessa in Ukraine. With considerable difficulty, the Russians have begun pressing in to establish a land connection with Kyiv. But there’s no use in building a corridor to the capital if you don’t control it.

All of this explains why Ukrainians are beginning to realise that triumph, rather than a crippling stalemate, is feasible.

Approximately $500 million in armaments have been sent to Ukraine in the last three weeks alone.

However, they are mostly defensive, like as anti-tank missiles employed by Ukraine troops trained in mobile insurgency by Britain and America. They now want other weaponry — heavy armour, planes, and artillery — to evict Russian soldiers stationed on their territory in the east.