Germany and the United States are ready to take an important step by supplying tanks to Ukraine, which it has been asking for, while the Kremlin has already managed to call the supplies of equipment blatant provocations, writes Reuters.
Washington is expected to announce its deliveries of M1 Abrams tanks as early as Wednesday, the 25th of January, and Germany has decided to give permission for its Leopard tanks to be placed at Ukraine’s disposal. It’s a turn that Ukrainian officials say will change the course of the war.
Until now, Western countries have hesitated to transfer heavy military equipment to Ukraine, fearing that Russia will perceive it as an escalation of the situation. At the moment, Moscow officials continue to emphasize that the supply of weapons to Ukraine will lead to disaster, and have repeatedly stated that Russia is now at war with all Western countries. Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, has been quick to declare that the tank deliveries are a blatant provocation. He wrote in Telegram that it is clear – Washington is trying to defeat Russia.
US officials have told Reuters that Washington is ready to begin the process to send M1 Abrams to Ukraine.
This comes just days after the US argued it could not give Ukraine its tanks. Up to 30 tanks are being considered for delivery in the coming months.
The German newspaper Spiegel has reported on Germany’s decision to transfer the Leopard to Ukraine and allow other countries to do so as well.
Neither Berlin nor Washington has yet officially confirmed these decisions, but Kyiv officials have already said that the tanks will help change the situation on the battlefield, where the war has been going on for more than 11 months now. Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, declared: «A few hundred tanks for our tank crews… This is what is going to become a real punching fist of democracy.»
Meanwhile, the front line, which stretches more than a thousand kilometers in eastern and southern Ukraine, has been unchanged for two months, despite heavy losses on both sides. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated in his address on the evening of the 24th of January that Russia is intensifying its attack on Bakhmut, where the fiercest battles are currently taking place.
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