Washington: According to Politico, the US and its allies are shifting their focus from supplying Ukraine with more weapons to fixing Western equipment that has already been sent to Kiev and damaged during its conflict with Russia.

Since the fighting began in February 2022, Ukraine has had issues maintaining the "international hodgepodge of equipment" given to it by the US, Germany, UK, Poland, and many other nations, the US news website noted in an article on Wednesday.

Since the beginning of the counteroffensive in early June, which has proven "difficult" for Kiev's forces and "led to some well-publicized losses of US-made Bradley fighting vehicles and hulking mine-resistant troop carriers, along with other well-publicized losses," the ability to quickly repair the damaged equipment has become even more important.

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William LaPlante, the Pentagon's director of acquisition and sustainment, told Politico that the US and its allies are "establishing repair facilities in Europe, we're translating [training and repair] manuals, we have to do much more together so there's going to be more of a focus on that" in order to help Ukraine.

According to Politico, LaPlante is in charge of a "22-nation working group, led by the US, Poland, and the UK," tasked with ensuring that weapons provided by the West remain operational throughout Ukraine's conflict with Russia.

The Pentagon representative stated that "we have regular conversations" with Kiev. What else do they require? Can we send any additional components? We are monitoring each system's availability rate, also known as uptime, in almost real-time.

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According to the report, the group has already helped Ukraine set up a support effort to monitor over 4,000 supply lines for highly demanded spare parts for foreign hardware. Over 700 technical manuals for the weapons sent to Kiev have also been translated into Ukrainian by the US so that local technicians can fix them.

We are ensuring that the Ukrainians have everything they require. Additionally, we make sure to deliver the parts to them even if they need to come from a nation halfway across the globe. Therefore, the majority of the work being done at this time is sustainment, according to LaPlante.

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Politico continued, "Much of the most significant repair work still needs to be shipped to locations like Poland or Czechia before making the exhausting trip back to Ukraine."

Russian officials have repeatedly denounced Western arms shipments to Ukraine, claiming that they will only serve to prolong the conflict and not obstruct Moscow's military operation's objectives. The US and its allies are already considered de facto participants in the conflict, according to the Kremlin, because they have given Kiev's forces weapons, intelligence sharing, and training.