My pleasure.

Re. Ukraine hiring NATO PMCs.... AFAIK, at least one Polish PMC is active in Ukraine.

My pleasure.

Re. Ukraine hiring NATO PMCs.... AFAIK, at least one Polish PMC is active in Ukraine.

That said, NATO is not operating that way: that would be both risky and counteproductive. Instead, Western PMCs are predominantly providing training and advice, not fighting like the Russian PMCs.

Re. slow flow of Western arms: primary reason is the way Western politics functions. Politicians are bribed by the defence sector (see 'lobbying') to do what is of advantage for the defence sector. The latter tells them, 'jobs', and they all 'care only to re-arm NATO first', not to deliver to Ukraine. No matter how long this might take.

Result: the West is fighting (for commercial interests) to profit, not to win this war.

Under such circumstances, it doesn't matter how much of public demand and support there might be: all that matters is that the politicians do what those paying them say. And those paying them are not those that are electing them... I.e. we've got a dysfunctional political system (no matter if in USA, Austria, Germany, France, UK or else).