Ukrainian tank crews have arrived in Britain to begin training for the continued fight against Russia, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said on January 29, just days after Britain and other NATO countries pledged more than 130 tanks to Ukraine.

“The UK will provide Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine together with global partner countries – demonstrating the international strength of support for Ukraine,” the ministry said. tweeted January 29.

The United States and Germany agreed last week to send Abrams and Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, respectively, while the United Kingdom announced in early January that it would send 14 Challenger 2 tanks. Germany has also allowed other countries such as Norway and Poland , to send their German Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.

Poland has announced that it will provide Ukraine with 60 more tanks in addition to the 14 it has already promised.

Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly said they need 300 tanks as they want to drive Russian forces out of their territory. Ukraine has lost more than half of its 850 tanks during the 11-month war, according to Oryx, a website that uses open-source tools to count equipment destroyed.

Russia has many more tanks than Ukraine, but its models are inferior to Western models in some key respects.

Both Russia and Ukraine are expected to launch offensives in the coming weeks, with tanks expected to play a key role in those battles, experts say.

Ukraine needs new weapons and faster supplies to deal with the “very difficult” situation of continuous attacks by Russian forces in the eastern Donetsk region, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on January 29.

“The situation is very difficult. There are constant Russian attacks in Bakhmut, Vuhledar and other sectors in the Donetsk region. There are constant attempts to break through our defenses,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

“Russia wants the war to drag on and exhaust our forces. That’s why we need to make time for our weapons. We need to speed up events, speed up supplies and open up new weapons options to Ukraine.”

Shortly after Zelenskiy’s speech, there were reports of a Russian military attack on an apartment building in the eastern city of Kharkiv, sparking a fire.

The mayor of the city, Ihor Terekhov, announced that there were victims.

Earlier, on January 29, Russian invasion forces on the ground in Ukraine continued their attacks.

Three people are said to have been killed and six wounded in Russian attacks on the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, which damaged a hospital and a school. said the regional administration.

Kherson was occupied by Russian troops from the early days of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine until it was reoccupied by Kiev forces in November. Since liberation, the city has been regularly shelled from Russian positions across the Dnieper River.

Meanwhile, frontline fighting remains intense, particularly in the eastern Donetsk region, where major battles are taking place for Vuhledar and Bakhmut, a city that has been virtually destroyed by repeated Russian artillery bombardments.

The head of the Donetsk regional military administration, Pavlo Kirilenko, said on January 29 that four people had been killed and 17 others wounded in Russian attacks on Bakhmut and Kostyantynivka the previous day.

There were no casualties among the civilian population, as the administrative center of the Beryslav district and the villages of Mylove and Tyahynka were under the Russian attack, district chief Volodymyr Litvinov said on Telegram on January 29.

Elsewhere, Ukraine’s military said its forces had repelled an attack in the Blahodatna area of ​​eastern Donetsk region, while Russia’s Vagner mercenary group claimed to have taken control of a village.

According to Reuters