By war in Ukraine against her forces of Russia they can be pumped quite a bit lessons for Taiwanas the unfolding conflict shows how a smaller army can stand up to a bigger one, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Tuesday.

“We learned several important lessons from the war in Ukraine (…) against Russia,” the Pentagon chief assured during a congressional hearing on Taiwan’s defense in the event of a possible Chinese invasion.

One of them is that “with asymmetric resources and asymmetric tactics and techniques, a smaller power can truly defend itself against a more powerful one,” he summarized.

Trained, equipped and supplied by an international coalition led by the US, the Ukrainian forces were not only able to resist the Russian offensive and prevent the country from being taken over, but also to recapture parts of it that had been taken over by the Russians.

The head of the US ministry judged in this sense that the ability to draw from US stocks and deliver weapons to the island is “critical to our efforts to supply Taiwan with what it needs” to defend itself, as is the case in Ukraine.

“We are working on this initiative and we hope to have something to announce in the near future,” he added, without elaborating on what he meant or giving a timetable.

Beijing considers Taiwan of 23 million people its province, pending reunification with the mainland after the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

China says it prefers peaceful reunification, but does not rule out the use of force to achieve this.

Earlier this month China’s military held three days of large-scale military exercises around Taiwan, ratcheting up pressure on the island in response to President Tsai Ing-wen’s meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, which Beijing took as a challenge.