London announced the sending of its Challenger 2. And there is strong pressure for Berlin to send the Leopard 2 of greater power than the Russian armored vehicles.
The Russian military aggression on Ukraine started almost 11 months ago. The transformation that European military support has given is Copernican. In fact, Russian President Vladimir Putin Putin denounced on Monday the increase in Western arms deliveries to kyiv.
If in the first weeks Berlin announced that it was sending a few thousand helmets, this week the head of government, the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, has on the table the papers to authorize the shipment of heavy tanks Leopard 2a weapon more powerful than the Russian tanks and far superior to the Soviet-made T-72s that Ukraine has.
The pressure on Scholz to make a decision as soon as possible it’s huge. Beyond the Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelensky, there are several European heads of government who are already asking Berlin to take a step forward.
Being of German manufacture, and by contract, it is Germany that must authorize any re-export of these tanks, which are in the arsenals of more than a dozen countries Europeans and total more than 2,000 units. Poland is the one who puts the most pressure on it, but in addition to Poland, when the shipment of the tanks is approved, countries such as Greece, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland or Spain can join the plan.
Of the three parties in the German government coalition (Social Democrats, Ecologists and Liberals) only the former have not yet given in. Environmentalists did just that last week when their leader and number two in the government, Robert Habeck, said that if Poland asks for permission to re-export its Leopard 2s to Ukraine the German government should not refuse.
“We must not stand in the way when other countries make decisions to support Ukraine, whatever decision Germany makes.”
Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Jablonski said his government “encourages other countries to form a broad coalition to transfer the most modern tanks to Ukraine, such as the Leopard 2.” Poland assures that it is already negotiating with Denmark, as is Finland, according to its president Sauli Niinistö.
This Monday the pressure continued. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, visiting Berlin, called on the German government to send the tanks or at least allow other countries to send them.
The British Challengers
The first official announcement was made this weekend by the British government, which will send 14 Challenger 2 heavy tanksa weapon equivalent to the German Leopard 2 or the American Abrams.
Until now, kyiv’s European allies have been reluctant to send weapons from this power because they consider that it would be a provocation to Russia that could lead to a military escalation.
the russian offensive
These reluctances have dissipated in recent months when the Russian Army began to bomb without rhyme or reason, randomly, civilian buildings with long-range missiles, lately with missiles designed for high seas attacks. For the European Union they are war crimes and terrorism.
One of those missiles hit this weekend on a residential building in the city of Dnipro. The construction collapsed and buried dozens of people. Ukrainian authorities have already removed 40 bodies from the rubble.
kyiv wants at least 300 heavy tanks. Sending these devices would remove another taboo on European aid to Ukraine and Germany already turned around a bit when it authorized the shipment of Marder light armored vehicles in December, which would join similar US vehicles, the Bradleys. Community sources expect the go-ahead from Berlin to come Friday when the Ramstein group (by the name of the US military base on German soil) meets.
Ukraine needs heavy tanks to face the Russian troops in a war that is more and more one of fixed fronts, of attrition, more classic.
The Leopard 2 it’s a 60 ton beast with a 120mm gun. Its 2nd version has improvements in all aspects compared to Leopard 1, which is barely used. The Leopards 2 They are fasterThey have better technologies and more armor.
After days of one of the fiercest battles of the war, the Ukrainian authorities acknowledged that Russian troops already control the city of Soledar, a crossroads between the cities of Lugansk and Kharkov, in eastern Ukraine, which Russia demands to annex. . Russian troops had announced his capture days before.
Brussels, especially for Clarion
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