Trevor Taylor: The Europeans underestimated the challenges facing the military industry

Public bickering among Europeans over the idea of sending troops to Ukraine has become headline news this week, overshadowing what's happening in Ukraine itself. The squabbles also cover up something else (and maybe they are a result of it) – Europe's failure to fulfil the obligations it undertook to the Ukrainians nearly a year ago. According to Volodymyr Zelensky, his troops have received only a third of the 1 million shells that Josep Borrell loudly promised last March. Forced to conserve ammunition, the Ukrainians left the initiative in Russian hands. This has cost them, at least so far, dozens more square kilometers of occupied territory and – if the New York Times is to be believed – hundreds of soldiers missing after the fall of Avdeevka. The underestimation of the difficulties of mobilizing industry by European politicians and their over-optimism about the development of the war are just two of the reasons that determine this failure, points out Prof. Trevor Taylor - director of the program on defence, industry and society at London's Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), in an interview with "Saturday 150".