According to a CNN report posted yesterday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley visited an undisclosed airfield near the Ukrainian border last week, that has become a hub for shipping weapons. While at the airfield, Milley met with troops and personnel and examined the shipment activity, an unnamed DOD official said. The airport’s location remains a secret to protect the shipments of weapons, including anti-armor missiles, into Ukraine. (Flight-tracking data suggests that the airfield is somewhere in southeastern Poland.) The Russian military has not targeted these shipments once they enter Ukraine, the official said, but there is some concern Russia could begin targeting the deliveries as its assault advances.
Indeed, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said that getting military material for Ukrainians to fight a Russian invasion is set to become more difficult for the U.S. and its allies. “I think that the international community has been tremendously responsive and have found ways to get the material in. That may become harder in the coming days, and we’ll have to find other ways to manage this,” she said in Madrid yesterday. “People are trying to see whether this is possible and doable,” she said, referring to transferring Soviet-era fighter jets to Ukraine. She added that the warplanes should not be regarded by Moscow as direct involvement in the conflict: “We would expect that this delivery would be seen as all the deliveries have been seen as a right for Ukraine to defend itself.”
A senior defense official, briefing reporters at the Pentagon yesterday, when asked about Sherman’s comment, said that “we have certainly in recent days continued to flow things into Ukraine, and not just us but 14 other nations are doing the same thing. It’s, obviously, moving in on the ground. And it’s getting in there through numerous venues. We haven’t seen those avenues closed or threatened,” he added. “But it’s certainly possible that over time it could become more difficult. But we just haven’t seen that be an impact yet.”
