Turkiye cancels Sweden’s ministerial visit due to planned protests
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday there was “no alternative” but for the West to provide Ukraine with heavy tanks, as Germany failed to commit its coveted Leopard vehicles to a possible spring offensive from Kyiv.
A US-led meeting with some 50 Ukrainian allies came through with billions of dollars worth of military hardware, including plenty of armored vehicles and ammunition needed to push back Russian forces.
But Zelensky stressed he needed battle tanks in addition to that, as US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Ukraine was expected to launch an attack on entrenched Russian troops in the coming weeks.
“We have a window of opportunity here between now and spring … whenever they begin their operation, their counteroffensive,” Austin said at the meeting at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
Zelensky urged the group in a video speech to “accelerate” arms deliveries, stressing that Germany’s Leopard tank was a primary need.
“Every day we make it more obvious that there is no alternative, that a decision on tanks has to be made,” he said.
Expectations had grown ahead of the meeting with the Ukraine Contact Group, a group of arms suppliers led by Austin, that Germany would at least agree to allow other countries that use Leopards to transfer them to Kiev’s army.
The reasons for Germany’s reticence remained unclear, as Britain has agreed to send 14 of its Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters: “We still cannot say when a decision will be made, and what the decision will be, regarding the Leopard tank.”
Austin defended Germany against criticism that it was not doing enough to help Kyiv.
“We could all do more,” Austin said, stressing that Berlin was a “reliable ally.”
US officials said Ukraine still faces an uphill battle against Russian forces, which still occupy a fifth of the country, 11 months after the invasion.
But they spoke of a possible upcoming campaign by Ukraine to retake parts of it.
US Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley pointed to the significant amount of equipment – much of it armored vehicles and artillery – that Ukraine was promised at Ramstein, as well as the large-scale training of its forces by allies.
“I think it is very possible for the Ukrainians to conduct a significant tactical or even operational offensive operation to liberate as much Ukrainian territory as possible,” Milley said.
A senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Kyiv should not fixate on defending the eastern city of Bakhmut at all costs and instead use the opportunity to prepare a major counteroffensive against Russian forces.
The official said the months-long defense of Bakhmut has been of little value to Ukraine and that a Russian victory there would not result in any significant change in the war.
Instead, Ukraine should focus on building a more sophisticated and heavily armed force capable of launching an offensive in the south, the official said.
The Kremlin warned on Friday that Western tanks will make little difference.
“One should not exaggerate the importance of such supplies in terms of the ability to change something,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“We see a connection to the dramatic delusion about the possibility of Ukraine’s success on the battlefield,” Peskov said.
“This will add problems for Ukraine, but this will not change anything in terms of the Russian side moving forward on the road to achieving its goals.”
The siege of Bakhmut hardly eased, as a couple stood across the street from their apartment building in the city on Friday and watched helplessly as their home burned and burned after a shell hit nearby.
“Look, look, it’s my apartment, it’s the only apartment I have,” said Olga Tomakh, 70, on the verge of tears.
About 15 kilometers from Bakhmut, in Soledar, the first UN humanitarian convoy arrived in the town which has been largely reduced to rubble.
Russia says it has seized Soledar, but Ukraine insists the fighting, in which both sides have suffered heavy losses, is ongoing.
Meanwhile, the United States said it officially designated Wagner’s private military group, which has taken the lead in the Bakhmut-Soledar campaign, as a “transnational criminal organization.”
The White House showed US intelligence photographs of North Korea supplying arms to Wagner for its Ukraine operations and said the private army had become a rival to the formal Russian military.