Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy today said he wants NATO allies to send long-range missiles and jets to his war-torn country to help hold off Russian troops while the West finally unites to support Vladimir Putin in a global war Defeat the fight for “freedom”. .
In a late-night address, Zelenskyy said: “I spoke to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg today… We also need to open supplies of long-range missiles to Ukraine, it’s important – we need to expand our artillery cooperation. This is a dream. And that is a task.”
In a devastating blow to the Kremlin, nine countries joined Britain in agreeing to send tanks to crush Russian forces in eastern Ukraine. The coalition came together just 48 hours after Boris Johnson’s rallying cry in the Chron, imploring Britain’s allies to end their hesitation.
The former prime minister, who witnessed the devastation wreaked by Putin’s forces on a recent visit to Ukraine, asked, “What the hell are we waiting for?” That wait ended yesterday when Berlin caved in to pressure to let go of its Leopard tanks and let NATO allies send in their German-made tanks.
Germany will initially send 14 Leopard 2s to Ukraine and aims to provide a total of 80 tanks. On what Zelenskyy called a “historic day,” the United States confirmed it would deliver 31 Abrams M1 tanks. Britain has already announced that it will send 14 Challenger 2 tanks. Poland, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal offered to send their stocks to Leopard 2. France is expected to send a squadron of its Leclerc tanks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses a news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, January 24, 2022
Zelensky is calling on Western allies to provide long-range missiles and jets to help his forces repel Russian invaders (US F-15 fighter jet pictured).
An ATACMS, a surface-to-surface missile, is fired at an unidentified location in South Korea on June 6, 2022 during a joint U.S.-South Korea military exercise
The Allied fleet will face off against the Kremlin’s army of tank regiments – most of them aging stocks of T-62s and T-72s, but also its elite T-90 units.
Zelenskyi, who turned 45 on Wednesday, thanked Chancellor Olaf Scholz and US leader Joe Biden for their decision to send heavy tanks to Ukraine hours before he called for long-range missiles and jets.
“It’s an important step on the road to victory,” the Ukrainian president tweeted, thanking Biden for his “strong” decision.
He also urged Western countries to send tanks quickly and in sufficient numbers.
“Speed and volume are critical now,” he said, referring to supplies and training soldiers.
“The terrorist state must lose,” said Zelenskyy, referring to Russia.
“The more defensive support our frontline heroes receive from the world, the sooner Russia’s aggression will end.”
The United States announced earlier Wednesday that it would provide 31 Abrams tanks to help Ukraine repel Russian invasion, mirroring a similar move by Germany in the face of dire warnings from Moscow.
The two announcements come as a great relief to Kyiv, which has been asking for western heavy tanks to support its fight for months.
“A historic day,” Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, said on the messaging app Telegram. “One of those days that will decide our future victory,” he added.
He also thanked Biden, Congress and the American people.
“We will never forget that,” he added. “The big time is coming.”
It came as:
- Russia captured the city of Soledar, its first significant military breakthrough in Ukraine since July last year, stoking fears it could make further advances;
- Former NATO commander General Richard Shirreff said the alliance’s job was to ensure that the war with Russia “stays cold and doesn’t turn into a hot war that engulfs us all”;
- Concerns have been raised that German hesitation means the tanks may arrive too late to ensure the Ukrainian offensive is successful;
- Ukrainian tank crews come to Britain to learn how to operate the Challenger.
Long-range missiles and fighter jet supplies from Western countries would give Kyiv a significant advantage over its Russian enemies in eastern Ukraine
Russia branded the West’s delivery of dozens of tanks to Ukraine as a “blatant provocation” and warned that the new NATO shipments would “burn like any other”.
Targeting Berlin’s decision to authorize Leopard 2 tank transports today, the Russian ambassador said: “This extremely dangerous decision takes the conflict to a new level of confrontation and contradicts statements by German politicians about the unwillingness of the German Bund ‘to participate in it.’
dr Justin Bronk, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told Web that the ability to operate new armored vehicles by spring could allow Zelensky’s forces to make “decisive breakthroughs” against Russia without incurring “crippling infantry losses”. suffer.
The expert said Ukraine has a chance to win the war in 2023, but “if it can’t take it because Western support is too little and too late,” then “the chance may not come again.”
After nearly two months of brutal but geographically limited fighting in Ukraine, both sides seem to be gathering strength for new offensives.
Russian forces have lost many thousands killed and wounded in repeated attacks on the towns of Soledar and Bakhmut.
They have used heavy artillery and infantry attacks to force slow, extremely costly advances across shell-strewn, muddy trench lines that resemble in many ways World War I.
The US is sending dozens of M1A2 Abrams tanks to Ukraine in the coming weeks to aid in its war effort
Great Britain announced that it would deploy 14 of its Challenger 2 tanks in Ukraine in the coming weeks and would train Ukrainian troops to use them
JUSTIN BRONK, Research Associate at London’s Royal United Services Institute, analyzed the current situation in an article for Web today as Ukraine prepares for a crucial spring and summer offensive
Russian President Vladimir Putin (C) accompanied by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin (L) and Viktor Sadovnichy, rector of Moscow State University, visits Moscow State University on Student’s Day in Moscow January 25, 2023
Ukraine, too, has suffered heavy casualties defending these areas of Donbass, but nonetheless one of the key elements of both sides’ strategies has been an attempt to limit the deployment of their armed forces.
Ukraine ended 2022 with two resoundingly successful counter-offensives in the north and south. In the north, Kharkiv Oblast was liberated along with the cities of Kupiansk, Izyum and Lyman.
Meanwhile, to the south, most of the Kherson region, including its capital, was liberated as the Russian army was crushed and eventually forced to withdraw from the west bank of the Dnipro River.
But the effort cost heavy casualties, particularly in Ukraine’s elite brigades, capable of large-scale mobile offensive operations.
Likewise, Russian casualties were extremely heavy, with recent estimates by Norwegian intelligence suggesting that around 180,000 Russian soldiers were killed, seriously wounded or captured since the invasion began.