After several days of increasing pressure on Berlin, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock indicated that Germany would not object if Warsaw asked permission to deliver the armored vehicles to Ukraine. “We will ask for that agreement,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki declared yesterday.
“Even if we do not get their agreement, we will give our tanks to Ukraine, together with other countries, within the framework of a small coalition, even if Germany is not part of it,” he added, given the lack of definitions on the matter.
Ukraine has criticized the “global indecisiveness” of its allies to provide it with tanks, a stance that kyiv says is “killing more people.”
round and round
This month, Poland had announced that it was ready to send 14 Leopard tanks to Ukraine, but was waiting for the go-ahead from Berlin on the matter. The German government, meanwhile, insisted on the need for all the allies to work together.
Scholz’s spokesman reiterated this idea yesterday by stating that the Berlin government “does not rule out” the delivery of armored vehicles, but added: “that has not yet been decided.”
Scarred by the Second World War, Germany tries to keep a low profile, acting quietly and discreetly on the international scene, when it comes to conflicts. Especially at a time when Russia says that the delivery of heavier military equipment to Ukraine would carry a serious risk of spillover from the conflict.
Under German arms control legislation, Poland – like any other country that buys weapons from it – needs Berlin’s approval to deliver the Leopard tanks to Ukraine, because they were produced in Germany. This law seeks to prevent weapons manufactured in Germany from ending up being used in conflict zones against the interests of the country.
In the ground
Meanwhile, a leader of the Russian occupation of eastern Ukraine, Denis Pushilin, said he had visited Soledar, a city in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, which Moscow claimed to have conquered this month.
Pushilin, Russia’s top official for Donetsk, said Sunday night that he had visited the fighting-ravaged town with Zurab Makiev, a Russian lawmaker.
The leader published a video on social networks in which both men, armed and in military uniform, are seen arriving by car in Soledar. As they affirmed, they are the first Russian officials to visit that municipality, whose seizure was announced by Moscow on January 13 as an important victory.
Pushilin told Russian state television yesterday that Soledar had been “destroyed” and that “almost no whole buildings are left standing.”
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the conquest of that city is an important step towards driving Ukrainian troops out of Bakhmut, a larger mining town near Soledar.
Pushilin noted that the fighting in Bakhmut was “intensifying” and claimed that Russian troops were advancing, with members of the Russian Wagner mercenary group holding strategic positions near Bakhmut.
Ukraine has not officially acknowledged the loss of Soledar.
Source: Ambito
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