Defense News shares details on multinational logistics cell delivering weapons to Ukraine

Journalists of the American Defense News visited the secret Patch Barracks logistics center in Germany, which organizes weapon supply to Ukraine from a coalition of partners.

As of July 21, the ECCU/IDCC has coordinated the movement of 78,000 tons of military assistance, over 1.4 million km of airspace and 450,000 km of ground distance.

800 flights have transported equipment to the Ukrainian border.

Cargoes do not stay in one place for a long time (the longest stay is 12-24 hours).

The door-to-door process from the moment an ally offers to provide military assistance to reaching the Ukrainian border can take 48 to 96 hours.

Three allies bordering Ukraine are allowing military assistance to be dropped off on their borders; Poland is one of them. Two of the three nations allow Ukrainians to enter the country and travel to a specific pickup point to gather the equipment.

The planning horizon for cargo delivery of the cell’s team is 2 months.

The logistics cell notes that the flow of Soviet-era equipment has started to dwindle. However, there remains one supplier of Soviet-era 152 mm and 122mm ammunition.

Rear Adm. Duke Heinz, Director of Logistics at U.S. European Command, told reporters that he does not rule out the delivery of any type of weapons in the future:

“This conflict is very different from three and a half months ago. If you had asked us then, “Would you think you’re going to deliver HIMARS to the Ukrainians?” I would have said, “Probably not.” So I would be cautious to say, “We won’t deliver X to the Ukrainians.” Based on their ability to fight and win, as they’ve shown, anything’s on the table.”

The cell noted that they are not aware of a single case where weapons ended up outside the agreed destination.

The logistics cell operates on the basis of the US European Command. Officers from the allied countries work at the headquarters of the Command on a rotational basis. The team is known as the EUCOM Control Center-Ukraine/International Donor Coordination Centre, or ECCU/IDCC. The logistics cell grew out of two discrete teams led by the U.S. and U.K. militaries, which worked in this direction at the beginning of the war. Ukrainians are also present in the center conveying requests from Kyiv.

In addition to logistics, the cell also organizes the training of Ukrainian Armed Forces. In this way, ECCU/IDCC turned into a “one-stop shop” for coalition military assistance to Ukraine. The United States has trained approximately 1,500 Ukrainian Armed Forces to date, according to EUCOM. The United Kingdom is providing a training operation for Ukrainian forces, with the potential to train up to 10,000 soldiers every 120 days.