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LAST UPDATE | 19 Jan 2023
UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR Zelenskyy has said that he expected “strong decisions” on further Western arms supplies at a key meeting of allies at the US Ramstein airbase in Germany tomorrow.
“As we prepare for tomorrow’s Ramstein, we expect strong decisions. We expect a powerful military support package from the United States,” he said.
A trio of European allies have pledged missiles and artillery for Ukraine after Kyiv urged partners to step up support “considerably” ahead of the major donor meeting.
The new promises flew in the face of a Kremlin warning against an “extremely dangerous” escalation if the West – long fearful of provoking direct confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia – sent longer-range weapons to Kyiv.
As Ukraine ramped up calls for tanks and longer-range weapons ahead of a key meeting in Germany tomorrow to discuss military aid, Britain announced it would send 600 Brimstone missiles to the war-torn country.
Denmark said it would donate 19 French-made Caesar howitzers while Sweden promised its Archer artillery system, a modern mobile howitzer requested by Kyiv for months.
Lithuanian Defence Minister Arvydas Anusauskas told AFP that “some countries will send” Leopard tanks to Ukraine, promising “more news tomorrow” at the meeting in Germany.
EU chief Charles Michel, visiting Kyiv, said he believed that tanks “must be delivered”.
“We want to support you because we are aware that the next few weeks may be decisive for what comes next,” he wrote on Twitter.
“We hear your message. You need more air defence and artillery systems, more ammunitions.”
As the pledges came in, senior Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak said it was “time to stop trembling” at Russian President Vladimir Putin and “take the final step”.
“Ukraine needs tanks; tanks – the key to end war properly,” Podolyak said on Twitter.
Earlier today, Ukraine’s foreign and defence ministries urged allies to “considerably” boost arms deliveries, calling on countries that have Leopard tanks, including Germany and Turkey, to send them.
Although Germany has been cautious about providing heavy weapons, Chancellor Olaf Scholz is facing mounting pressure within Europe to authorise Leopard tank exports ahead of tomorrow’s meeting at the Ramstein US military base.
Scholz told US congressmen in Davos that Germany would supply heavy tanks to Ukraine if the United States sent tanks too, a senior US lawmaker told AFP today.
“It’s basically that it’s got to be the United States and Germany,” said Gregory Meeks, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told the PAP news agency he was “moderately pessimistic” about Berlin’s position.
“Germany is defending itself against this like the devil in holy water,” he said. “It does not want to send its modern equipment, in particular the Leopards.”
“There are times where we shouldn’t hesitate,” Zelenskyy told the annual World Economic Forum gathering in Davos via video-link.
“When someone says ‘I will give tanks if someone else will also share tanks’… I don’t think this is the right strategy to go with.”
Western partners fear that Ukraine could use long-range weapons to hit deep inside Russian territory or Crimea — a peninsula Moscow annexed in 2014 – despite Kyiv promising it would not do so.
The Kremlin warned of escalating the conflict to a “whole new level” if the West meets Ukraine’s latest calls for longer-range weapons.
“Potentially, this is extremely dangerous,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“It will mean bringing the conflict to a whole new level, which, of course, will not bode well from the point of view of global and pan-European security,” he added.
Earlier this month, the United States promised to send its powerful Bradley armoured fighting vehicles, while France has offered its highly mobile AMX-10 RCs – offensive weapons that Western nations had previously considered off-limits.
Military support to Ukraine will be discussed by representatives of around 50 countries in Ramstein, including all 30 Nato members.
Weapons already provided by the West have been credited with helping Ukraine win back territory in recent months.
On the ground, Moscow-installed official Vladimir Rogov said Russian troops had launched a “local offensive” near the town of Orikhiv in southern Ukraine, where the front has been largely stagnant for months.
“The territory of the Zaporizhzhia region liberated from Ukrainian fighters is gradually increasing,” he said.
The Ukrainian army did not mention Orikhiv in today’s daily report.
Air raid sirens wailed on Thursday in Kyiv and nationwide, a day after a helicopter crash outside the capital killed the interior minister and 13 others near a kindergarten.
The crash killed Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky, 42, one of Zelenskyy’s key aides.
He was the highest-ranking Ukrainian official to die since Russia sent troops into Ukraine on 24 February last year.
Zelenskyy said the investigation into the accident was ongoing, with several theories being examined.
Thanks,but no tanks. it’s time to find a political solution.
@Pat Man: I mean, Russian forces don’t seem to be getting the message that they need to go back where they came from to end this. A few shells in their direction may be a further deterrant.
@Paul Cunningham: and a welcome boost for the European defence industry
@Pat Man: What political solution? Russia is attempting to annex huge parts of Ukraine and Ukraine needs the means to stop them from doing so. Russia will not stop. They aren’t interesting in peace.
It’s amazing how absolutely naive people like you are.
@Seán Ó Briain: agreed. Russia will not stop and will not stop at Ukraine.
@Paddy Ryan: but Lavrov claimed that the west is intent on liquidating Russia in a contemporary version of the Holocaust.
Just when you think they can’t get any sicker. I’m reluctant to use the word, but these people are insane. I can’t think of any other way of describing it. Of course, it’s straight out of the Trump playbook: the more outrageous the claim the better.
It’s time to deliver for Ukraine and put an end to Putin’s War of aggression
The cold hard truth is that Ukraine and Russia’s best and brightest young men are dying, thousands of them. Imagine being a mother or a father to a soldier that you haven’t heard from in months. The govt won’t tell you anything. Most likely he is dead.
The leader of Ukraine wants more weapons… for more sons to die. For what? Its time for peace…
@Diarmuid O’Braonáin: One side of the ‘peace argument’ is Ukrainian loss of independence, the extent of which is far from clear, and from that perspective I understand the arms supplies, but things are getting more and more complicated.
The conflict is currently bogged down while Russia seems to be slowly learning from its past mistakes. Ukraine beating Russia has long been the wishful thinking mode, while the realism that conflicts which don’t end in complete victory or defeat tend to end at the negotiating table is still controversial: Russia’s law-of-the-jungle approach is understandably considered not to be allowed to pay off, but there’s a big dilemma looming:
If Ukraine starts doing worse on the battlefield, which it seems to be, the likelihood increases that NATO member states get more and more invlolved, to the point of a direct confrontation with Russia. And the heavy weaponry which would then be required is already limiting the possibilities to now send these to Ukraine (this is what I think is holding back the Germans).
So western leaders are going to be forced one way or another to start thinking seriously how this war can be brought to a conclusion rather than to be allowed to dangerously drag on and on.
@Diarmuid O’Braonáin: Russia is employing criminals. In an army run by criminals. I don’t see how you can say that the brightest and best are dying. They are safe in st Petersburg and Moscow. You can listen to and watch some of them online. Or you could if they didn’t walk away from the interviewers, afraid to answer questions. All it requires for peace is for Russia to withdraw. Or for Russian troops to stop fighting. But then they will probably end up getting shot or beaten to death with sledgehammers by others of russia’s best and brightest. It is easy for us to sit back and watch Ukrainian soldiers fight on. And no doubt there are huge profits being made by the arms industry and so on. But until the Ukrainian army and people decide to stop fighting, who are we to tell them not to?
@Diarmuid O’Braonáin: As I’Ve read elsewhere ‘If Russia stops fighting, there will be no war, if Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no Ukraine’
Give tanks for the eventual elimination of Putin and his evil deeds..Amen.
Zelensky for man of the year
@Aidy McBride: LOL
We should keep the US out of this and Europe on its own should turn back putin easily. Then the Russian people will turn on their weak leader. Finally Russia can join European prosperity instead of a totalitarian schite show.
A special international dispensation for the execution of Russian war criminals on a pay per view event with the funds raised going to the rebuilding of Ukraine. All children over the age of 12 to watch with a sincere explanation of what these hateful humans have done prior to the drop. Sounds Orwellian? I don’t care. I sincerely want to see putin and lavrov with their tongues lolling. History doesn’t work anymore obviously, time for something slightly more medieval.
@Paul: What about US war criminals? Israeli war criminals?
Go get em!
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