>
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky declared today that he wanted the Western allies to send missiles and long-range aircraft to his war-torn country to help repel Russian troops.
“I have spoken with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg today… We must also open deliveries of long-range missiles to Ukraine, it is important, we must expand our cooperation on artillery,” Zelensky said, adding that Ukraine needed planes.
‘This is a dream. And this is a task.
Zelensky’s latest plea comes just hours after the United States and Germany announced they would send M1 Abrams and Leopard 2 tank battalions to bolster efforts by Ukraine’s armed forces to push back Vladimir Putin’s troops in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks at a news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, on January 24, 2022.
Zelensky is asking the Western allies to provide missiles and long-range aircraft to help his forces push back the Russian invaders (US F-15 fighter jet pictured)
An ATACMS, a surface-to-surface missile, is fired during a joint US-South Korean military training at an unidentified location in South Korea on June 6, 2022.
Zelensky, who turned 45 on Wednesday, thanked German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and US leader Joe Biden for their decision to send heavy tanks to Ukraine, hours before calling for missiles and long-range aircraft.
“This is an important step on the road to victory,” the Ukrainian president tweeted, thanking Biden for his “powerful” decision.
He also urged Western countries to send tanks quickly and in sufficient volumes.
“Speed and volume are key now,” he said, referring to the deliveries and the training of soldiers.
“The terrorist state must lose,” Zelensky said, referring to Russia.
“The more defense support our heroes at the world’s front receive, the faster Russia’s aggression will end.”
The United States announced Wednesday that it will provide 31 Abrams tanks to help Ukraine repel an invasion by Russia, mirroring a similar move by Germany in the face of dire warnings from Moscow.
The two announcements come as a great relief to Kyiv, which has pleaded for months for heavy Western tanks to help its battle.
“A historic day,” Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, said on the Telegram messaging app. ‘One of those days that will determine our future victory,’ he added.
He also thanked Biden, Congress, and the American people.
“We will never forget it,” he added. The great moment is comming.
Long-range missiles and fighter jet deliveries from Western nations would give Kyiv a considerable advantage over its Russian enemies in eastern Ukraine.
Russia called the West’s supply of dozens of tanks to Ukraine a “blatant provocation” and warned that the new NATO supplies “will burn like all the others.”
The Russian ambassador today took aim at Berlin’s decision to approve shipments of Leopard 2 tanks, saying: “This extremely dangerous decision brings the conflict to a new level of confrontation and contradicts the statements of German politicians about the unwillingness of the German Federation to get involved in that.’
Dr Justin Bronk, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, told MailOnline that being able to operate new armored vehicles in early spring could allow Zelensky’s forces to “make decisive advances” against Russia without suffering “crippling infantry losses”. .
The expert said Ukraine has a chance to win the war in 2023, but “if it cannot seize it because Western support comes too little too late,” then “the opportunity may not present itself again.”
After almost two months of brutal but geographically more limited battles in the Ukraine, both sides appear to be gathering strength for new offensives.
The United States will send dozens of M1A2 Abrams tanks to Ukraine in the coming weeks to help with its war effort.
Britain announced that it would deploy 14 of its Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine in the coming weeks and train Ukrainian troops to use them.
JUSTIN BRONK, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, discussed the latest situation in an article for MailOnline today as Ukraine prepares for a crucial spring and summer offensive.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (C), accompanied by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin (L) and Moscow State University rector Viktor Sadovnichy, visits the Moscow State University on Student’s Day in Moscow on January 25, 2023
Russian forces have lost many thousands killed and wounded in repeated attacks on the cities of Soledar and Bakhmut.
They have used heavy artillery and infantry assaults to force slow and extremely costly advances through lines of muddy, shell-pierced trenches that in many ways resemble World War I.
But Ukraine has also suffered heavy losses defending these areas of the Donbas, yet one of the key elements of both sides’ strategies has been to try to limit the number of forces they commit.
Ukraine ended 2022 with two resoundingly successful counteroffensives, in the north and the south. In the north, Kharkiv Oblast was liberated along with the cities of Kupiansk, Izyum and Lyman.
Meanwhile, in the south, most of the Kherson region was liberated, including its capital, when the Russian army was crushed and eventually forced to withdraw from the western bank of the Dnipro River.
But the effort cost heavy casualties, especially in Ukraine’s elite brigades capable of large-scale mobile offensive operations.
Similarly, Russian casualties have been extremely heavy, with recent estimates by Norwegian intelligence suggesting that around 180,000 Russian soldiers have been killed, seriously wounded or captured since the start of the invasion.