At an all-day military strategy meeting on Friday (January 20th) in Ramstein, Germany, Ukraine’s allies announced new arms deliveries to Kyiv. Several hundred combat vehicles and anti-aircraft defense systems have notably been promised by the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, or even the United States, which have announced a new tranche of 2.5 billion dollars of assistance.
But Ukraine’s Western supporters have still not managed to agree on the delivery of the heavy tanks, dampening the hopes of kyiv, which is urging them. Ukraine will now have to wait for further discussions and a green light from Germany. Because its heavy tanks, the Leopards 2, by far the most represented in the European armies, are currently blocked by the lack of authorization for re-export by Berlin, which “has not yet made its decision”.
Volodymyr Zelensky reacted on Friday evening, stressing that the allies, who have promised to support Ukraine “as much as necessary”, must inevitably realize that “there is no other solution” than the supply of these tanks to enable Ukraine to launch a major counter-offensive.
The door to the delivery of heavy tanks is not closed
The United States nevertheless hinted that the situation could change in the coming weeks. “We have a window of opportunity here between now and the spring” to deliver Western tanks when Ukraine begins “its counter-offensive,” said US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Until then, the various additional military aid packages promised by several countries offer the Ukrainian forces “the capacity they need to achieve success” on the ground, judged the head of the Pentagon.
The Netherlands announced on Friday, January 20, to have joined a “group of countries, including Germany”, which is studying the possibilities of providing heavy tanks to kyiv, including by providing training. His Polish counterpart Mariusz Blaszczak said he was “convinced” that the allies would eventually unite to deliver German Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
Moscow responds to blocked assets of RT in France
Moscow promised this Saturday January 21 to take retaliatory measures against the French media in Russia, after the bank accounts of RT France, the French branch of the Russian channel RT which is suspended in the EU, were frozen. “The freezing of RT France accounts will lead to retaliatory measures against French media in Russia. They will be remembered if the French authorities do not stop terrorizing Russian journalists,” warned a source within Russian diplomacy, quoted by Russian news agencies Ria Novosti and Tass.
Washington advises a “big counter-offensive” in the South
The besieged city of Bakhmout, in the east of the country, was again violently bombarded on Friday January 20, according to AFP. Now largely ravaged, the city became the epicenter of the fighting with slow advances and high casualties on both sides. Bakhmout has become a major symbol of the fight against the Russian invasion: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky even visited the front line in December.
A senior US administration official told AFP on Friday that Ukraine should not seek to defend the city of Bakhmout at all costs, which, already largely destroyed, is wasting the resources of the army. But it should rather focus on preparing a major counter-offensive on the front line in the south of the country, particularly in the Zaporijia region. According to him, Ukraine would also benefit from assigning these very exposed soldiers to equipment and training programs directed by the United States, in order to train more technical and heavily armed units to prepare for action in the south. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also said that Washington expects a counter-offensive from Ukraine in the spring.
The Netherlands promises equipment and training
A new promise of help from a Western ally. The Dutch government announced Friday, after the Ramstein summit, that it would help Ukraine to equip itself with the Patriot air defense system, while Western countries are accelerating their arms deliveries to kyiv. The country will deliver “two launchers and missiles”, according to the Dutch Ministry of Defence. The Netherlands also announced that it will be responsible for training Ukrainian soldiers and providing 100 vehicles with anti-aircraft guns purchased from the Czech Republic.
This operation takes place within the framework of a “collaborative project with the United States and Germany” to respond to the urgent appeal of Volodymyr Zelensky. The United States had announced at the end of December to provide a Patriot air defense system to Ukraine, and Berlin had also committed to providing one of these systems on January 5. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov welcomed the new deliveries on Twitter, thanking his American “friend and colleague” Lloyd Austin and assuring that “Bradleys and Patriots will change the course of the war”.
Wagner, international criminal organization for the United States
A huge Russian paramilitary group made up of mercenaries, “Wagner” is now considered an international criminal organization by the White House. He “commits vast atrocities and abuses of human rights”, denounced Friday before the press the spokesman of the American National Security Council, John Kirby. “We continue to consider that the Wagner Group currently has some 50,000 personnel deployed in Ukraine,” he said. Of these, 40,000 would be prisoners recruited during their sentence.
The official announced that Washington would soon take further sanctions against the Wagner group. He also shared satellite images showing Russian trains bound for North Korea to supply equipment for the Wagner Group. The paramilitary group, led by Yevgueni Prigojine, is very active in the fierce battle to take Bakhmout in eastern Ukraine.