Ukraine has already received the promised 18 “Leopard 2” tanks from Germany. This was reported by Der Spiegel, adding that 40 German armored vehicles of the Marder type have also arrived in the conflict zone. The tanks were transferred to Ukraine’s border last week, according to the paper. Details of the delivery were not disclosed by the German government due to security reasons.
Among the countries that have joined the decision to support Ukraine by sending tanks of this model currently in their armed forces are Poland, Spain, Portugal, Finland, the Netherlands and Norway. The United States, for its part, has agreed to supply tanks of the Abrams type, equivalent to the Leopard 2.
The Leopard tanks will be deployed in different sections of the front line in Ukraine in April or May, as announced by the Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov in the ‘Ukraina stuudiole’ program of the Estonian TV Err.
Slovakia delivers first four MiG-29s to Ukraine
The news comes as tensions are heating up between the countries of the Atlantic Alliance bloc and Russia with Poland urging the West to “remain calm on Russia’s nuclear weapons” in Belarus, but also to respond “firmly to threats”. The Polish Minister for European Union Affairs, Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek explains to Sky News that although it is “an element of escalation, the reaction should be calm but firm” because “we cannot be intimidated by Russian propagandists”.
The secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev has launched new threats, this time directly targeting America: “Russia possesses advanced and unique weapons capable of destroying any enemy, including the United States, in case of threat to its existence ”he warned in an interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper. For Patrushev “in fact the NATO countries are part of the war” and “they do not hide that their main objective is to try to prolong this military conflict as long as possible, Russia’s defeat on the battlefield and further division” .
According to the Kremlin, the evidence of Western involvement would be precisely the weapons supplied to Kiev: in addition to the German tanks, three Leopards donated by Portugal have also reached Ukraine.
For Kiev there is no peace without the liberation of the territories occupied by the Russians, by hook or by crook. A negotiated solution remains a long way off, and certainly Moscow’s announcement of its intention to go straight to the atomic bombs in Belarus doesn’t help.