Ukraine on Saturday blasted the “global indecision” of its allies after Germany stalled on supplying its vaunted Leopard tanks to bolster Kyiv’s fighting capacity in the nearly year-long war with Russia.
On Friday, about 50 nations agreed to provide Kyiv with billions of US dollars of military hardware, including armored vehicles and munitions needed to push back Russian forces.
However, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said that despite heightened expectations, “we still cannot say when a decision will be taken, and what the decision will be, when it comes to the Leopard tank.”
Photo: AFP
“Today’s indecision is killing more of our people,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter.
“Every day of delay is the death of Ukrainians. Think faster,” he said.
In a joint statement on Saturday, the foreign ministers of the three Baltic states urged Germany “to provide Leopard tanks to Ukraine now.”
“This is needed to stop Russian aggression, help Ukraine and restore peace in Europe quickly,” said a message posted by Latvian Minister of Foreign Affairs Edgars Rinkevics, and his Estonian and Lithuanian counterparts.
“Germany, as the leading European power, has special responsibility in this regard,” they added.
In Berlin, hundreds of people demonstrated outside the Federal Chancellery building calling for Germany to send tanks to Ukraine.
Berlin has been hesitant to send the Leopards or allow other nations to transfer them to Kyiv.
Reports earlier in the week indicated Germany would agree to do so only if the US provided its tanks as well.
Washington has said providing its Abrams tanks to Ukraine is not feasible, citing difficulties in training and maintenance.
However, expectations had grown ahead of Friday’s Ukraine Contact Group meeting of about 50 US-led countries that Germany would at least agree to let other countries operating Leopards transfer them to Kyiv’s army.
The pleas came as the Russian army said its troops had launched an offensive in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, where fighting intensified this week after several months of an almost frozen front.
In its daily report on Saturday, Moscow’s forces said they had carried out “offensive operations” in the region and claimed to have “taken more advantageous lines and positions.”
Russia also said it had held a training exercise on repelling air attacks in the Moscow region, using an S-300 anti-aircraft missile system.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense reported 26 airstrikes and 15 attacks from multiple-launch rocket systems.
“The enemy does not abandon its aggressive plans, focusing its main efforts on attempts to fully occupy the Donetsk region” on Ukraine’s border with Russia, it said.
In Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attended the funeral of his interior minister and other officials killed in a helicopter crash outside the capital on Wednesday.
The seven coffins were hoisted into the echoing hall in central Kyiv by military pallbearers in full ceremonial dress, to the sound of a lone trumpet and a snare drum.
Denys Monastyrsky, one of Zelenskiy’s top aides, is the highest-ranking Ukrainian official to die in the war that Russia launched on Feb. 24 last year.
Zelenskiy and his wife, Olena Zelenska, wore all black and carried floral tributes.
“Ukraine is losing its best sons and daughters every day,” Zelenskiy said in a statement.
“It hurts to think about it, it hurts to talk about it now,” he added in his evening address.
The cause of the crash that killed him and 13 others when the chopper fell near a kindergarten is still being investigated.
US officials said Ukraine still faced an uphill battle against Russian forces who occupy one-fifth of the country 11 months after invading.
However, they spoke of a possible Ukrainian counteroffensive in the coming weeks to retake parts of its territory.
However, the Kremlin on Friday said that Western tanks would make little difference on the battlefield.
“One should not exaggerate the importance of such supplies in terms of the ability to change something,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
DAREDEVIL: Honnold said it had always been a dream of his to climb Taipei 101, while a Netflix producer said the skyscraper was ‘a real icon of this country’ US climber Alex Honnold yesterday took on Taiwan’s tallest building, becoming the first person to scale Taipei 101 without a rope, harness or safety net. Hundreds of spectators gathered at the base of the 101-story skyscraper to watch Honnold, 40, embark on his daredevil feat, which was also broadcast live on Netflix. Dressed in a red T-shirt and yellow custom-made climbing shoes, Honnold swiftly moved up the southeast face of the glass and steel building. At one point, he stepped onto a platform midway up to wave down at fans and onlookers who were taking photos. People watching from inside
A Vietnamese migrant worker yesterday won NT$12 million (US$379,627) on a Lunar New Year scratch card in Kaohsiung as part of Taiwan Lottery Co’s (台灣彩券) “NT$12 Million Grand Fortune” (1200萬大吉利) game. The man was the first top-prize winner of the new game launched on Jan. 6 to mark the Lunar New Year. Three Vietnamese migrant workers visited a Taiwan Lottery shop on Xinyue Street in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (崗山), a store representative said. The player bought multiple tickets and, after winning nothing, held the final lottery ticket in one hand and rubbed the store’s statue of the Maitreya Buddha’s belly with the other,
‘NATO-PLUS’: ‘Our strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific are facing increasing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party,’ US Representative Rob Wittman said The US House of Representatives on Monday released its version of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which includes US$1.15 billion to support security cooperation with Taiwan. The omnibus act, covering US$1.2 trillion of spending, allocates US$1 billion for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative, as well as US$150 million for the replacement of defense articles and reimbursement of defense services provided to Taiwan. The fund allocations were based on the US National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026 that was passed by the US Congress last month and authorized up to US$1 billion to the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency in support of the
‘COMMITTED TO DETERRENCE’: Washington would stand by its allies, but it can only help as much as countries help themselves, Raymond Greene said The US is committed to deterrence in the first island chain, but it should not bear the burden alone, as “freedom is not free,” American Institute in Taiwan Director Raymond Greene said in a speech at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research’s “Strengthening Resilience: Defense as the Engine of Development” seminar in Taipei yesterday. In the speech, titled “Investing Together and a Secure and Prosperous Future,” Greene highlighted the contributions of US President Donald Trump’s administration to Taiwan’s defense efforts, including the establishment of supply chains for drones and autonomous systems, offers of security assistance and the expansion of
RSS