Germany to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and permit other countries to re-export them; US also expected to announce tank donation
Germany has confirmed it will make 14 Leopard 2A6 tanks available for Ukraine’s war effort, and give partner countries permission to re-export further battle tanks to Kyiv, overcoming misgivings about sending heavy weaponry that Ukraine sees as crucial to defeat the Russian invasion.
Washington’s reported promise on Tuesday to deliver a significant number of US Abrams tanks to Kyiv, in step with its European partners, appeared to break the deadlock on the issue. On top of the German company of Leopard 2A6 tanks, Finland, Spain and the Netherlands will also contribute vehicles of the same model, according to German media reports. A second battalion will be made up of Leopard 2A4 tanks supplied by Poland and Norway.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has welcomed the decision by Germany to supply his country with Leopard 2 battle tanks, and said he is “sincerely grateful” to Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The Russian embassy in Germany has accused Berlin of abandoning its “historical responsibility” to Moscow and of taking the conflict in Ukraine “to a new level of confrontation”. Ambassador Sergei Nechayev said “With the approval of the leadership of Germany, battle tanks with German crosses will again be sent to the ‘eastern front’, which will inevitably lead to the deaths of not only Russian soldiers, but also the civilian population.”
Zelenskiy had said on Tuesday that Kyiv needed allies to decide on whether they would deliver modern tanks to strengthen the country’s defence against Russia. Zelenskiy said the issue was not about five, 10 or 15 tanks, as Ukraine’s needs are greater, but about reaching final decisions on real deliveries. “When the needed weighty decisions are made, we will be happy to thank you for each weighty decision,” Zelenskiy said.
The mooted United States offer to send dozens of its own M1 Abrams battle tanks to Ukraine is a reversal of its previous position. US President Joe Biden is expected to make an announcement at 5pm GMT.
Ukraine’s state broadcaster Suspilne has reported that in the last 24 hours one person was killed in Kherson oblast due to Russian shelling, six others were injured, ten others were wounded in Donetsk oblast. It said over the past 24 hours, the Russian Federation carried out four missile and 26 airstrikes, as well as more than 100 shellings from multiple launch rocket systems in Ukraine. At the same time, the aviation of the Ukrainian defence forces carried out eight strikes on areas where Russian troops were concentrated, destroyed an SU-25 and three KA-52 attack helicopters.
Ukraine’s military spokesperson, Serhiy Cherevatyi, has said Ukrainian forces have withdrawn from the eastern town of Soledar in the Donetsk region, according to the country’s state broadcaster Suspilne. His comments are the first Ukrainian confirmation of Soledar’s capture by Russian forces.
In Ukraine, fifteen senior officials have left their posts since Saturday, six of whom have had corruption allegations levelled at them by journalists and Ukraine’s anti-corruption authorities. On Wednesday prosecutor general Andriy Kostin signed orders on the voluntary dismissal of the heads of the Zaporizhzhia, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Sumy, and Chernihiv regional prosecutor’s offices. Oleksiy Kuleba, who was removed as governor of Kyiv on Tuesday, has been appointed deputy head of the president’s office as part of the reshuffle.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set its Doomsday Clock, intended to illustrate existential risks to the world, at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest to midnight the clock has ever been since it was first introduced in 1947. It is “largely” because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they said. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov reacted Wednesday by saying “The situation as a whole is really alarming”, blaming Nato and the US.
The Russian defence ministry said on Wednesday the frigate Admiral Gorshkov has tested its strike capabilities in the western Atlantic Ocean. In a statement, the ministry said the frigate had run a computer simulation on hypersonic Zircon missiles. Zircon missiles have a range of 900km (560 miles), and can travel at several times the speed of sound, making it difficult to defend against them.
The European court of human rights said on Wednesday that a case brought by the Netherlands against Russia over the downing of passenger flight MH17 in July 2014 was admissible. “Among other things, the Court found that areas in eastern Ukraine in separatist hands were, from 11 May 2014 and up to at least 26 January 2022, under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation,” the court said in a ruling. The case will now move on to the merits stage, expected take another one to two years before a final decision is issued.
Russia’s oldest human rights organisation, the Moscow Helsinki Group, was liquidated on Wednesday after a Moscow court ruled it did not have the correct registration. Russia’s justice ministry filed a lawsuit against it in December, arguing that the group was only registered to defend human rights in Moscow – not other parts of the country – an argument that the group called nonsensical.
The United Nations cultural agency UNESCO said on Wednesday that it had designated the historic centre of Odesa on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, a World Heritage in Danger site.