Europe must arm Ukraine faster, urges its defence minister

THE DEFENCE minister of a country under invasion doesn’t have much time for reading, but Oleksii Reznikov makes a point of studying the front pages. He is concerned by what he sees. “Either the world doesn’t quite understand what is happening,” he says, “or it does understand, is tired, and is content with a few Ukrainians dying.” When Russia attacked his country on February 24th, few expected Ukraine to survive. Heroic resistance transformed fatalism into hope, and led to promises of military support. But cracks in the Western alliance are appearing just as the war enters a bloody new phase. Ukrainian losses are now running at an average of 100-200 men a day. “We need assistance, quickly,” says the minister, “because the cost of any delay is measured in Ukrainian blood.”