“Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. You have to win it. Defeat brings worse things than could happen in war.” Ernest Hemingway wrote it. I knew what he was talking about. I had seen everything too close. He also understood that triumph is the basic desire of those who send their people to the massacre. And that to achieve victory they are willing to do anything. So are many other men who know that war brings wealth and power. They provide the weapons that in any conflict always end up being scarce. That is what is happening in Ukraine. Putin is willing to win at any cost. The West to stop it. In the middle are those who hold the weapons and hand them over in exchange for huge monetary or political gains.
Iran is one of the arms manufacturers that wants to gain influence. He sticks his tail and puts his token on the invasion of Ukraine. Russia is receiving missile launchers, ammunition and other military materials from Iraq with the help of the weapons smuggling networks of the Iranian Republican Guards. According to members of Iraqi militias backed by Iran and regional intelligence services with knowledge of the process that reported to The Guardian in London, RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and anti-tank missiles, as well as Brazilian-designed rocket launching systems, have been delivered to Russia in recent days.
The Ayatollahs in Tehran also “donated” an Iranian-made Bavar 373 missile system and “returned” an S-300 that Moscow had sold to them a few months ago, according to a source that helped organize the transport quoted by the British newspaper. Russia and Iran are military allies supporting Bashar al-Assad's regime in the war in Syria. And Iraqi Shiite militias supported by Iran have an important arsenal that they have obtained in the last twenty years of war and various conflicts in that country since the US invasion in 2003. The Shiite militias have been officially attached to the Iraqi armed forces since 2016 and played a very prominent role in the fight against the Islamic State. They have access to very sophisticated weapons.
According to sources consulted by The Guardian, the RPGs and anti-tank missiles of the Hashd al-Shaabi militias, the most powerful of the Shiite fighters, were transported to Iran via the Salamja border crossing on March 26, where they were met by the Iranian military and taken to Russia by sea. On April 1, ashd al-Shaabi also dismantled and dispatched two Brazilian-designed Astros II rocket launcher systems, known in Iraq as the Sakhil-60 version, manufactured under license, to Iran. “We don't care where heavy weapons go because we don't need them right now,” said one of Hashd al-Shaabi's commanders. “Anything that is anti-American makes us happy.”
Three freighters carried the arms shipment — two Russian-flagged and one Iranian-flagged — across the Caspian Sea from the Iranian port of Bandar Anzali to Astrakhan, a Russian city in the Volga Delta. “What the Russians need in Ukraine right now are those missiles. Of course, they require skill to transport them as they are fragile and explosive,” said Yörük Işık, an expert on war affairs based in Istanbul. “Nor is it the kind of activity that satellite images would capture, since they can be transported in large boxes and normal shipping containers.”
That is the same type of armament that Ukraine needs for defense. “Ukrainian ground forces have made the same requests to their allies since at least 2019: medium-range air defense, anti-tank missiles, counter-battery radars, counter-sniper systems, drones and basic equipment for the mobilized forces. As Lieutenant General Ruslan Komchak, vice-chairman of the Committee for Defense and National Security of Ukraine, explained to me days before the war, Ukraine wanted to wage a mobile defense, maneuvering to counter the enemy's axes of advance, confusing Russian armor, striking Russian artillery from beyond the line of vision and then forcing a battle of attrition on complex terrain,” wrote Dr. Jack Watling, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute.
Western allies of the Kiev government are providing the most appropriate weaponry for this second phase of the war taking place in the Donbas, the region of eastern Ukraine that Vladimir Putin wants to seize. T72 tanks, protected mobility and a steady stream of anti-tank weapons, portable air defense systems and loitering ammunition are arriving. Also on the way are planes that, paradoxically, Russia recently sold to Egypt and which the government of General Al Sisi will hand over to Ukraine in exchange for the United States providing them with the most modern F-16s.
The Cairo government purchased 46 MiG-29M aircraft, the latest Russian model, along with a complement of R-77 active radar-guided missiles that Ukraine has been requesting from NATO since the beginning of the invasion. This is the type of fighter bomber that Ukrainian pilots are used to flying and operating and would not require months of training to use them. They are also proven in that geography and would be very effective in eliminating Russian batteries located within their own territory. And the Egyptian Air Force would gladly replace its MiG-29M with the US-made F-16s, which proved to be extremely effective in thousands of missions. Egypt already flies with a considerable number of F-16s and has the necessary infrastructure to expand its fleet. The Pentagon has already authorized this exchange, which has a history with sales of similar fighters to Turkey and Taiwan.
In the first month of the war in Ukraine, there was not enough time to achieve these transfers of war material. Organizing such a complicated agreement requires considerable diplomatic work and military analysis. At that time, few expected Ukraine to resist the initial attack. Now that the conflict is dragging on, these options are viable. The MiG-29M could strengthen Ukrainian defenses to prevent a Russian advance beyond the Donbas and would offer protection for western Ukraine. “The delivery of Switchblade-600 loitering ammunition, for its part, should provide Ukrainian forces with a tool to harass Russian air defenses, potentially creating windows of opportunity for more aggressive air operations of all Ukrainian aviation,” published the specialized site warontherocks.com.
A long month of fighting is coming, in which the two sides are confident that they will have a better situation than they have had until now in the military field. The front is bounded to a plot of land of far fewer square kilometers than it had until now. And with the new weaponry they're getting from their allies, they're going to make the fight more balanced. Bloodier, too. While other regional powers such as Iran and Egypt play their chips and watch from a distance.