U.S.-Led Air Bridge of Weapons to Ukraine Seeks to Shore Up Kyiv’s Ability to Resist Russia

Until Russia’s current escalation, Turkey and the U.S. have been the only countries willing to risk Moscow’s ire by supplying Ukraine with arms. Turkey provided Kyiv with a fleet of TB2 Bayraktar armed drones that Ukraine has already used on the battlefield in the Russian-controlled Donbas area in the country’s east. Alongside the U.S., British, Canadian and Polish trainers have long been training Ukrainian armed forces in modern warfare.

Moscow has an overwhelming advantage in air, sea, artillery, missiles and manpower that the latest Western supplies are unlikely to eliminate. Yet officials from several countries have said that their concerted effort in military assistance signals Western resolve and complicates Russia’s invasion costs and choices.

Ukraine isn’t a member of NATO. Russia—while denying that it plans a military invasion—has said that it won’t accept Ukraine joining the Western alliance. With well over 100,000 forces massed on Ukrainian borders, Russia has the capacity to launch an imminent invasion if it decides to do so, U.S. officials say.

U.S. shipments have so far included a panoply of materiel, including small-arms ammunition, mortar and artillery shells, antitank guided missiles, bunker-busting missiles, grenade launchers, explosive ordnance disposal suits and Mossberg 500 pump-action shotguns, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials. The U.K. has supplied thousands of antitank missiles and the Baltic states of Latvia and Lithuania sent American-made Stinger antiaircraft missiles.

Stepan Poltorak, who served as Ukraine’s defense minister from 2014 to 2019, said that Ukraine needed a close, consistent relationship in defense development and procurement with the U.S. and NATO, rather than piecemeal deliveries. Current stopgap consignments exclude complex weapons systems, given the training time required for new operators.

The latest U.S. planeload arrived in Kyiv on Saturday. The U.S. has sent roughly 650 tons of arms and equipment to Ukraine since Jan.22. Since Russia’s seizure of Crimea and occupation of the eastern Donbas areas in 2014, the U.S. has delivered $2.7 billion in military aid to Ukraine.

“Those deliveries are ongoing,” a Pentagon spokesman said. “The U.S. is identifying additional equipment held in Department of Defense inventories.”

Last month, the U.S. administration notified Congress it planned to transfer five Russian-made Mi-17 transport helicopters to Ukraine’s possession. The Afghan army had been using the helicopters, which are now in Ukraine for servicing. A U.S. official said the administration was awaiting the conclusion of approval procedures.

A large portion of the U.S. shipments to Kyiv have been taken up with ammunition in a variety of calibers, including high-intensity grenades, high-caliber rifle rounds, armor-penetrating tracers, hundreds of thousands of rounds of antitank ammunition and a surplus of 7.62 caliber bullets for the Soviet-designed small arms in wide use in the Ukrainian military.

Ukraine has been suffering from a severe shortage of ammunition, a U.S. official said. Several Ukrainian weapons depots were destroyed in accidents that Kyiv blamed on Russian sabotage after 2014. Russian secret services were later implicated in an attack on Czech weapons depots that supplied Ukraine. Ukraine’s only ammunition plant, in the city of Luhansk, is located in an area that has been under Russian control since 2014.

The enlarging group of foreign partners is forming to restock Kyiv’s stores. Last month, the U.K. sent roughly 2,000 short-range NLAW antitank missiles to Kyiv. Ukrainian forces began training exercises with the NLAW missiles near the city of Chernihiv, northeast of Kyiv, this weekend.

“Ukraine has every right to defend its borders, and this new package of aid further enhances its ability to do so,” said Ben Wallace, the U.K.’s secretary of state for defense. “Let me be clear, this support is for short-range and clearly defensive weapon capabilities. They are not strategic weapons and pose no threat to Russia.”

Ukraine and the U.K. are also negotiating Kyiv’s purchase of two refurbished Royal Navy minesweepers and are discussing frigate production and the joint development of eight missile warships.

In 2019, Turkey began supplying Ukraine with the Bayraktar TB2 drone, which Ukraine used to destroy a howitzer artillery gun in the Russian-controlled Donbas region in October. On a visit to Kyiv last week, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan formalized a deal with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky to produce Turkish drones in Ukraine. Construction on a production facility outside of Kyiv already is under way.

Mr. Zelensky said the Turkish drones represented “an increase in Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.”

A vocal opponent of the Russia buildup, Poland has pledged to supply Ukraine with drones and a short-range, man-portable antiaircraft system, the Piorun, which is designed to hit low-flying aircraft, such as helicopters, at up to 13,000 feet.

Mariusz Błaszczak,

Poland’s minister of national defense, said Poland was giving Ukraine its newest weapon.

In a December visit to Washington, Ukrainian Defense Minister

Oleksii Reznikov

carried a wish list topped by antimissile systems, according to Ukrainian and U.S. officials, signaling Ukraine’s understanding of Russia’s ability to strike at long range.

“We believe the chances for advancement of the enemy forces are high,” said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defense minister now with the Centre for Defence Strategies, a Kyiv think tank.

Mr. Zagorodnyuk said Ukraine would resort to “small groups tactics making Russian advantages in aviation less relevant.” He listed several items Ukraine would find useful, including sniper rifles, night-vision goggles, combat and reconnaissance drones and counter-battery and counterdrone radar systems.

The issue of supplying lethal aid to Ukraine is at least as old as Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea and invasion of Donbas.

The current Russian military buildup has inspired several governments to change policies on supplying such aid, but others have balked, especially those with important trade and energy relations with Russia.

Invoking its guilt over its World War II invasion of the Soviet Union, Germany has declined to provide Ukraine with military aid beyond 5,000 helmets and medical supplies. Berlin has also declined to allow Estonia to send Ukraine a German-origin D-30 howitzers, which can hit targets at 12 miles.

Other countries have shared nonlethal aid, as Canada did Friday, sending Ukraine a planeload of gear, including surveillance and detection equipment, according to Canada’s Department of National Defense.

Washington’s own position on the issue has evolved, from President

Barack Obama’s

resistance to sending lethal aid to Ukraine, to President

Donald Trump’s

decision to provide Javelin antitank weapons in 2019, to President Joe Biden’s approval last month of a new $200 million Ukrainian military-aid package, which paved the way for the current air shipments.

Mr. Reznikov, Ukraine’s defense minister, hailed the arrival of a shipment last week. On Twitter, he posted a photo from the plane’s cargo hold, which depicted arms and equipment secured in large gray storage containers. “Most importantly—this isn’t the end,” Mr. Reznikov wrote. “To be continued.”

Write to Brett Forrest at brett.forrest@wsj.com