DW News with Mariana Evenstein January 20, 2022
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Western allies failed to reach a decision on supplying Ukraine with powerful battle tanks at a meeting at the US Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Friday.
Lloyd Austin, the US defense secretary, said after the Contact Group on Ukraine meeting that “Ukraine is not dependent on one platform.”
Austin, who hosted the meeting, said the allies had made promises of large quantities of other weapons.
“What we’re really focused on is making sure Ukraine has the capability it needs to be successful right now,” Austin said.
Germany was at the center of the tank debate. Ukraine has said it wants German-made Leopard and American M1 Abrams tanks.
The country’s new defense minister, Boris Pistorius, said Berlin would “balance all the pros and cons before we decide things like this… I’m very sure there will be a solution in the short term, but I don’t know what the solution will look like.”
Berlin has not yet given the go-ahead to Leopard-owning allies such as Poland or Finland that want to send them to Ukraine.
“Ukraine is running out of personnel, running out of weapons, every day counts, they are bleeding,” Roderich Kiesewetter of Germany’s opposition Christian Democratic Party (CDU) and a former Bundeswehr general staff officer told DW. “And I believe European trust is dying,” he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv would continue to push for modern heavy armor.
“Yes, we will still have to fight for the supply of modern tanks, but every day we are making it more and more obvious that there is no alternative to the tank decision,” he said.
No deal on the tanks, but hope remains
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This article with live updates is closed. You can read below how the day unfolded.
Zelensky says Ukraine will continue to push for modern tanks
Ukraine’s president says he will continue to fight to get battle tanks from his allies.
“Every day we make it more and more obvious that there is no alternative to the decision on tanks,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in an evening video address.
Ukraine’s allies have not decided whether to send German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks or American M1 Abrams tanks to Kyiv.
Zelensky said the outcome of the Ramstein meeting would strengthen Ukraine’s resilience.
“Yes, we will still have to fight for the supply of modern tanks,” he said.
The top Democrat on the US Armed Services Committee says Germany must be given time
It is not “fair to criticize” Germany for taking time to consider whether to give Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, Adam Smith, who leads the Democrats on the US House Armed Services Committee, told DW.
He said that while Ukraine’s allies wanted Russia defeated, they also did not want “direct conflict”.
“I don’t think it’s a fair criticism to say that Germany has delayed just because you know somebody in the process said well you have to send it, you have to send it now,” Smith said.
“There’s a calculation in that that a lot of people don’t pay attention to,” he added.
He said Russian President Vladimir Putin had threatened to escalate the war.
“You know what that escalation point is where there’s a higher risk of going into that direct conflict?”
“So I think people who just look at this and go, hell, Germany, they should send them whatever they want, whatever they want and not even think about it… It’s a harder calculation than I think, that a lot of people do I’m willing to admit,” Smith said.
Ukraine says it will eventually get what it needs
Ukraine says that while it is waiting to receive the German Leopard 2 tanks it wants, it believes they will be delivered in the future.
“We are getting stronger,” wrote Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s administration, on the Telegram messaging app.
“And everything we haven’t got yet, we will get,” he added.
The meeting of the Ukrainian Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base did lead to a broad consensus that more military aid should be sent to Ukraine.
However, he did not make a decision on the delivery of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
An American general says that long foretells a long battle
The head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, expressed doubt that Ukraine will be able to push Russian troops out of its territory this year.
“From a military point of view, I still maintain that for this year it will be very, very difficult to expel Russian forces militarily from all, every inch of … Russian-occupied Ukraine,” he said after a meeting of Ukrainian allies at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
He said much work remains to be done to help Ukrainians use weapons provided by their allies ahead of the spring offensive against Russia.
In the longer term, he said, “it’s going to have to come to the negotiating table at some point to see this through.”
Milli said this can only happen if Ukraine is free and its territory is intact.
Germany remains a “reliable ally”
Germany is “a reliable ally and has been for a very long time,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters when pressed about Berlin’s role. “I truly believe they will continue to be a reliable ally going forward,” he added.
He noted that Germany had taken in “39,000 of my soldiers” as well as civilian dependents.
Austin said Germany was essential in helping train Ukrainian soldiers.
“Germany continues to open the doors and provide us with training area facilities to continue to do what we need to do, and Germany also trains troops … they have a big oar in the water.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also said that Germany is one of the allies that provides the most support to Ukraine. “Artillery, ammunition, air defense systems and now also Marder infantry fighting vehicles: Germany is really leading the way in supporting Ukraine in many, many areas,” he said.
Austin announces military aid to Ukraine
The US defense secretary, who hosted the meeting, said the focus of the meeting was “providing the capability that Ukraine needs to be successful in the near future.”
He added that this means not focusing on a “single platform” and listed a whole list of military aid that the allies have announced they will provide to Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military has requested hundreds of American M1 Abrams battle tanks and German Leopard 2s, but Austin said, “I don’t have any reports of M1 tanks.”
What makes the Abrams tank so effective?
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Earlier, Germany’s new defense minister, Boris Pistorius, said that while there was no resolution yet, “we will make our decisions as soon as possible.”
He said he had ordered the ministry to look at the stockpile of tanks Germany had so it could be prepared for a possible green light and be able to “act immediately”.
Despite requests from Ukraine, Germany has not yet agreed to supply Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv or to allow other countries, such as Poland, to provide the German-made tanks from their own supplies.
Poland announced the formation of a coalition to supply Leopard tanks to Ukraine
Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said he was confident efforts to deliver battle tanks to Ukraine would succeed.
However, he said a meeting of NATO and defense leaders at Ramstein Air Base in Germany had not reached a decision on the matter.
“The hope comes from the fact that … the defense ministers of 15 countries met on the sidelines of today’s conference and we talked about this topic,” Blaszczak told reporters in Ramstein.
“I am convinced that building a coalition will end in success.
Poland is one of the countries pressuring Berlin to deliver Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv or to allow other countries to provide the German-made tanks from their own supplies.
US wants Ukraine’s allies to ‘dig deeper’
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin invited members of the Ukraine Contact Group to the conference at Ramstein, his country’s largest air base outside the US, and urged them to “dig deeper” into their stockpiles to supply Ukraine with weapons , which it needs to repel a Russian invasion.
Among those present were Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Resnikov and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
Representatives of non-NATO countries were also present, as they were at the last two meetings in Ramstein.
Lloyd Austin: ‘Time to dig deeper’
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Zelensky insists on a military aid agreement
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking via video link at the start of the meeting, urged allies to “accelerate” arms deliveries.
“Time must become our weapon. The Kremlin must lose,” he said.
He asked those present to make it the “Ramstein of tanks,” urging future gatherings to “go down in history as the Ramstein of F-16s and long-range missiles.”
“It is your power to guarantee such artillery,” he told those present at the talks.
Germany will check availability of Leopard 2 tanks
Germany’s new defense minister, Boris Pistorius, said Berlin had not yet decided to send Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine, but added that officials would examine their stockpile for possible delivery.
“Today we still cannot say when a decision will be made and what the decision will be when it comes to the Leopard tank,” Pistorius said on the sidelines of a meeting at the US Ramstein Air Base to coordinate military aid to Ukraine.
The impression that “there is a united coalition and that Germany is standing in the way” is wrong, Pistorius said, adding that “there are many allies who say that we share the view that I have expressed here.”
“There are good…
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