US, Germany poised to send tanks to Ukraine, answering Kyiv's pleas
Skip to main content
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Sunday
January 29, 2023

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2023
US, Germany poised to send tanks to Ukraine, answering Kyiv's pleas

World+Biz

Reuters
25 January, 2023, 08:35 am
Last modified: 25 January, 2023, 08:42 am

Related News

  • North Korea calls US pledge of tanks to Ukraine 'unethical crime'
  • Police say 3 dead, 4 hurt in latest California shooting
  • Ukraine imposes sanctions on 182 Russian, Belarusian firms, 3 people
  • Memphis disbands police unit after fatal beating as protests continue
  • Forget 'autonomy': Europe needs the US as much as ever

US, Germany poised to send tanks to Ukraine, answering Kyiv's pleas

Reuters
25 January, 2023, 08:35 am
Last modified: 25 January, 2023, 08:42 am
Germany delivers its first Leopard tanks to Slovakia as part of a deal after Slovakia donated fighting vehicles to Ukraine, in Bratislava, Slovakia, December 19, 2022. REUTERS/Radovan Stoklasa/File Photo
Germany delivers its first Leopard tanks to Slovakia as part of a deal after Slovakia donated fighting vehicles to Ukraine, in Bratislava, Slovakia, December 19, 2022. REUTERS/Radovan Stoklasa/File Photo

The United States was expected to announce as soon as Wednesday that it will send heavy tanks to Ukraine, and Germany has decided to do the same, sources said, a reversal that Kyiv has said would reshape its war with Russia.

Hours before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy turned 45 on Wednesday, he pressed allies to move forward with providing his forces with more than five to 15 modern tanks.

"Discussions must be concluded with decisions," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. "Decisions on real strengthening of our defence against terrorists. Allies have the required number of tanks."

Just days after arguing against granting Kyiv's requests, Washington was ready to start a process that would eventually send M1 Abrams battle tanks to Ukraine, two US officials told Reuters on Tuesday. A third official said the US commitment could total about 30 tanks delivered over the coming months.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had decided to send Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine and allow other countries such as Poland to do so as well, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Spiegel magazine, which first reported the news, said Germany was planning to supply at least one company of Leopard 2 A6 tanks, which usually comprises 14 tanks. Other allies, in Scandinavia for example, intend to go along with Germany in supplying their Leopard tanks to Kyiv, the magazine reported.

While there was no official confirmation from Berlin or Washington, officials in Kyiv hailed what they said was a potential gamechanger on the battlefield in a war that is now 11 months old - even if the rumoured tank numbers fell short of their hopes.

"A few hundred tanks for our tank crews .... This is what is going to become a real punching fist of democracy," Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelenskiy's administration, wrote on Telegram.

Kyiv has pleaded for months for Western tanks that it says would give its forces the firepower and mobility to break through Russian defensive lines and recapture occupied territory in the east and south. Germany has held back, wary of moves that could cause Moscow to escalate.

FRONT LINES FROZEN

Front lines in the war, which stretch more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) through eastern and southern Ukraine, have been largely frozen for two months despite heavy losses on both sides. Russia and Ukraine are both widely believed to be planning new offensives.

Zelenskiy said on Tuesday night that Russia was intensifying its push toward Bakhmut, an industrial town in eastern Ukraine that has been the focus of intense fighting. "They want to increase the pressure on a larger scale," he said.

Whether to supply Ukraine with significant numbers of heavy modern battle tanks has dominated discussions among Kyiv's Western allies in recent days.

The Kremlin has said supplying tanks to Ukraine would not help and that the West would regret its "delusion" that Kyiv could win on the battlefield.

Berlin has been pivotal because the German-made Leopards, fielded by some 20 armies around the world, are widely seen as the best option. The tanks are available in large numbers and easy to deploy and maintain.

While the US Abrams tank is considered less suitable due to its heavy fuel consumption and difficulty to maintain, a US move to send them to Ukraine could make it easier for Germany - which has called for a united front among Ukraine's allies - to allow the supply of Leopards.

Russian President Vladimir Putin casts the "special military operation" that began when his troops invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year as a defensive and existential battle against an aggressive and arrogant West.

Ukraine and the West call Russia's actions an unprovoked land grab to subdue a fellow former Soviet republic that Moscow regards as an artificial state.

LEADERSHIP PURGE

Separately on Tuesday, Ukraine dismissed more than a dozen senior officials as part of an anti-corruption drive made more critical by the need to keep its Western backers onside.

The European Union, which offered Ukraine the status of candidate member last June, welcomed the development.

Among Ukrainian officials who resigned or were dismissed were the governors of the Kyiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, the latter three frontline provinces. Kyiv and Sumy were major battlefields earlier in the war.

Some, though not all, of the officials who left had been linked to corruption allegations.

Ukraine has a history of graft and shaky governance, and is under international pressure to show it can be a reliable steward of billions of dollars in Western aid.

Top News / Europe / USA

USA / Germany / Ukraine crisis

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Getting gas to India will be even more costly than laying this pipe to China.Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg
    Russia can't replace the energy market Putin broke
  • Ex-MD Mehmood Hossain rejoining National Bank
    Ex-MD Mehmood Hossain rejoining National Bank
  • Photo: UNB
    AL won't run away, rather will continue developing Bangladesh: PM in Rajshahi

MOST VIEWED

  • FILE PHOTO: A US Air Force 510th Fighter Squadron pilot leaves his F-16 fighter in Amari air base March 26, 2015. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins/File Photo
    Ukraine in talks with allies about getting long-range missiles
  • FILE PHOTO: People walk along Istiklal Avenue, decorated with Turkish national flags after Sunday's blast killed six and wounded dozens, in Istanbul, Turkey, November 14, 2022. REUTERS/Umit Bektas/File Photo
    Turkey alerts citizens to risk of attack in United States, Europe on heels of Western warnings
  • China central bank to roll over lending tools to spur growth
    China central bank to roll over lending tools to spur growth
  • FIKE PHOTO: Medical staff moves a patient into a fever clinic at a hospital, as coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreaks continue in Shanghai, China, December 19, 2022. REUTERS/Aly Song
    China approves two domestically developed Covid drugs
  • Represenattional image. File Photo
    Iranian military factory hit by drone attack
  • Getting gas to India will be even more costly than laying this pipe to China.Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg
    Russia can't replace the energy market Putin broke

Related News

  • North Korea calls US pledge of tanks to Ukraine 'unethical crime'
  • Police say 3 dead, 4 hurt in latest California shooting
  • Ukraine imposes sanctions on 182 Russian, Belarusian firms, 3 people
  • Memphis disbands police unit after fatal beating as protests continue
  • Forget 'autonomy': Europe needs the US as much as ever

Features

Nandita Sharmin's journey to give organic skincare a new identity

Nandita Sharmin's journey to give organic skincare a new identity

7h | Mode
Illustration: TBS

'The silver lining is that the worst is sort of behind us': Hamid Rashid, UN economist

10h | Panorama
Photo: Bloomberg

BuzzFeed and AI are a match made in fad city

9h | Panorama
Snipe in flight. Photo: Enam Ul Haque

Baikka Beel: 'A world where snipe work late'

1d | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

Sarika Sabrin is waiting for a good film

Sarika Sabrin is waiting for a good film

35m | TBS Entertainment
Take your football game to the next level at Next Level academy

Take your football game to the next level at Next Level academy

1h | TBS SPORTS
“Investments risky without consistent policy, reliable data”- SK Bashir Uddin

“Investments risky without consistent policy, reliable data”- SK Bashir Uddin

3h | TBS Round Table
What does Shahrukh has in his 770 million dollar property?

What does Shahrukh has in his 770 million dollar property?

23h | TBS Entertainment

Most Read

1
Picture: Collected
Bangladesh

US Embassy condemns recent incidents of visa fraud

2
Illustration: TBS
Banking

16 banks at risk of capital shortfall if top 3 borrowers default

3
Photo: Collected
Splash

Hansal Mehta responds as Twitter user calls him 'shameless' for making Faraaz

4
A frozen Beyond Burger plant-based patty. Photographer: AKIRA for Bloomberg Businessweek
Bloomberg Special

Fake meat was supposed to save the world. It became just another fad

5
Bapex calls candidates for job test 9 years after advert!
Bangladesh

Bapex calls candidates for job test 9 years after advert!

6
Representational Image
Banking

Cash-strapped Islami, Al-Arafah and National turn to Sonali Bank for costly fund

EMAIL US
contact@tbsnews.net
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2023
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - oped.tbs@gmail.com

For advertisement- sales@tbsnews.net