The German and US moves definitively scrap one of the last taboos in Western support for Ukraine: providing arms that have a mainly offensive rather than defensive purpose.
The United States and Germany announced plans to send Ukraine dozens of advanced battle tanks, hailed by Kyiv as a potential turning point in its fight to repel Russia’s invasion but denounced by Moscow as an “extremely dangerous” step.
President Joe Biden announced the US decision to supply 31 M1 Abrams tanks hours after Berlin said it would provide Leopard 2 tanks., Zelenskiy said he spoke to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and called for long-range missiles and aircraft. Ukraine’s allies have already provided billions in military support including sophisticated US missile systems.
Germany, previously the West’s holdout amid deep reluctance to export offensive weapons given its Nazi past, said it would send an initial company of 14 tanks from its own stocks and also approve shipments by allied European states.The eventual aim would be to supply Ukraine with two battalions of Leopards, typically comprising three or four companies each, the first to arrive within three or four months.
“There is no offensive threat to Russia ,” Biden said. Moscow increasingly casts the war as a perilous face-off between Russia and the U.S.-led NATO military alliance. Berlin said it would send further military aid to Kyiv, including air defence, heavy artillery and multiple rocket launchers. Moscow says supplying modern offensive weaponry to Ukraine will only postpone Russia’s inevitable victory. Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador in Washington, said deliveries of U.S. tanks would be “another blatant provocation”.
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