Ukrainian military vehicles drive along a road outside of the town of Chasiv Yar on January 18, 2023 in Bakhmut, Ukraine.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Western allies on Friday dampened Ukraine’s hopes for a rapid shipment of battle tanks to spice up its firepower for a spring offensive against Russian forces, with america urging Kyiv to carry off from mounting such an operation.
The highest U.S. general, speaking after a gathering of the allies at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, also said it might be very hard for Ukraine to drive Russia’s invading forces from the country this 12 months.
The run-up to the Ramstein meeting had been dominated by the difficulty of whether Germany would comply with send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, or permit other countries which have them to achieve this.
In the long run, no decision on supplying Leopards was reached on Friday, officials said, although pledges got for big amounts of other weapons, including air defense systems and other tank models.
“We had a frank discussion on Leopards 2. To be continued,” Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleskii Reznikov said after the meeting.
The US was also holding fast to its decision not to supply Abrams tanks to Ukraine yet, a senior U.S. official said in Washington.
In Ramstein, U.S. General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news conference: “From a military standpoint, I still maintain that for this 12 months, it might be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from every inch of Russian-occupied Ukraine.”
The developments likely got here as a disappointment to Ukraine, because the war unleashed by a Russian invasion last February grinds on, with no solution nor let-up in sight. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had specifically requested more battle tanks.
Ukraine was hit especially hard this week, reporting 44 people confirmed dead and 20 unaccounted for after a Russian missile attack on an apartment block in Dnipro. Russians in St Petersburg and Moscow have been laying flowers at improvised memorials to the victims.
Germany wary
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a news conference at the tip of the Ramstein meeting that while time was of the essence for Ukraine to take the fight to Russia’s forces within the spring, Ukraine was well-equipped even without the Leopards.
“Ukraine will not be depending on a single platform,” he said.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration faces pressure at home to produce more advanced weaponry. A bunch of U.S. senators visiting Kyiv on Friday blasted the delays. “We should always not send American troops to Ukraine, but we should always provide Ukraine with whatever we’d give our troops in the event that they were fighting on the bottom,” Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal told reporters.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told Reuters Ukraine’s backers needed to focus not only on sending latest weapons, but supplying ammunition for older systems and helping maintain them.
For its part, the Kremlin said supplying tanks to Ukraine wouldn’t help and that the West would regret its “delusion” that Kyiv could win on the battlefield.
Germany has been under heavy pressure to permit Leopards to be sent. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrat party is traditionally skeptical of military involvements and wary of sudden moves that would cause Moscow to further escalate.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said he couldn’t say when there could be a choice on the tanks but Berlin was prepared to maneuver quickly if there was consensus amongst allies.
“All pros and cons should be weighed very rigorously,” Pistorius said.
Defense ministers from NATO and other countries met at Ramstein amid concern that Russia would soon reenergize its military campaign to seize parts of Ukraine’s east and south that it says it has annexed but doesn’t fully control.
Zelenskyy thanked allies for his or her support at first of the meeting but said more was needed and more quickly.
“We’ve got to hurry up. Time must turn out to be our weapon. The Kremlin must lose,” he said.
