Europe must arm Ukraine faster, urges its defence minister

minister of a country 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. 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 . 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.”When Russian tanks crossed Ukraine’s borders in the north, south and east, the 55-year-old former lawyer had been in charge of his department for less than four months. A civilian appointment to a position usually taken by former military men, Mr Reznikov had expected largely to busy himself with bureaucratic reforms. Instead he found himself reorganising defence affairs as missiles rained down on Kyiv.