UKRAINE: Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after thanking the Western leaders for their precious support in committing to send tanks to Ukraine, has expressed the urgency to deliver them faster.
He has also urged the West to send their long-range missiles and fighter jets to combat Russian forces specifying that at least 300 tanks would be required to defeat Russia.
Ukraine President Zelenskyy urged that all the armor must be sent quickly
Zelenskyy addressed in his nightly video, “We have to form a fist of tanks, a fist of freedom, which will not allow tyranny to rise again and that the key now is speed and volume, the speed of training our military, the speed of supplying tanks to Ukraine.”
He requested the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, to ascertain that “other aspects of the defence cooperation” should be looked into as well.
Russia, however, labels the West’s allyship in this matter as a “blatant provocation,” denoting all tanks would be ruined and “burn like all the rest,” as phrased by Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson to Vladimir Putin.
German Chancellor opposed the idea of the West sending advanced fighter jet planes. He added that this could harm the targets inside Russia.
31 M1 Abrams battle tanks would be sent by the US Government as announced by President Joe Biden. Germany would send 14 of its Leopard 2s to the battlefield.
UK has become the first Western nation to send main battle tanks, including 14 Challenger 2s, as promised by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Poland was willing to send 14 Leopard 2 tanks, as announced later on Wednesday.
These aids could significantly help Ukraine to fight against a potential Russian offensive that has been anticipated to occur this spring.
The German-made Leopard 2 tanks can be sent from the old inventories and would arrive in a couple of months, and Ukrainian crews would be trained to use these tanks.
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