Germany confirms it will provide Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks - BBC

After weeks of reluctance, Germany has agreed to nonstop Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, successful what Kyiv hopes volition beryllium a game-changer connected the battlefield.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the determination to nonstop 14 tanks - and let different countries to nonstop theirs excessively - astatine a furniture gathering connected Wednesday.

US President Joe Biden's medication is besides expected to denote plans to nonstop astatine slightest 30 M1 Abrams tanks.

A Kremlin spokesperson earlier said the tanks would "burn similar each the rest".

Dmitry Peskov said determination was an overestimation of the imaginable the tanks would bring to the Ukrainian army, and called the determination a "failed plan".

But Ukrainian officials importune they are urgently successful request of heavier weapons, and accidental capable conflict tanks could assistance Kyiv's forces prehend backmost territory from the Russians.

A German authorities spokesperson said the determination to proviso the tanks "follows our well-known enactment of supporting Ukraine to the champion of our ability".

Germany besides permitted different countries to nonstop their Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine - which was restricted until present nether export regulations.

The US and Germany had resisted interior and outer unit to nonstop their tanks to Ukraine for immoderate time.

Washington cited the extended grooming and attraction required for the high-tech Abrams.

Germans endured months of governmental statement astir concerns that sending tanks would escalate the struggle and marque Nato a nonstop enactment to the warfare with Russia.

US media is reporting that an announcement regarding Abrams shipments to Ukraine could travel arsenic soon arsenic Wednesday, with unnamed officials cited arsenic saying astatine slightest 30 could beryllium sent.

However the timing remains unclear, and it could instrumentality galore months for the US combat vehicles to scope the battlefront.

German officials had reportedly been insisting they would lone hold to the transportation of Leopard 2s to Ukraine if the US besides sent M1 Abrams.

"If the Germans proceed to accidental we volition lone nonstop oregon merchandise Leopards connected the conditions that Americans nonstop Abrams, we should nonstop Abrams," Democratic Senator Chris Coons, a Biden ally, told Politico connected Tuesday.

Britain has already said it volition nonstop Challenger Two tanks to Ukraine.

Ukraine is inactive improbable to get the 300 modern main conflict tanks it says it needs to triumph the war.

But if fractional a twelve Western nations each supply 14 tanks, past that would bring the full to astir 100 - which could marque a difference.

Western tanks - including the UK's Challenger 2, Germany's Leopard 2 and the US-made Abrams - are each seen arsenic superior to their Soviet-era counterparts, similar the ubiquitous T-72.

They volition supply Ukrainian crews with much protection, velocity and accuracy.

But Western modern main conflict tanks are not a wonderment limb oregon game-changer connected their own. It's besides what's being supplied alongside them.

In caller weeks, there's been a measurement alteration successful dense weapons being supplied by the West - including hundreds much armoured vehicles, artillery systems and ammunition.

Combined together, they are the benignant of subject hardware needed to punch done Russian lines and to retake territory.

If Ukrainian troops tin beryllium trained and the weapons delivered successful time, they could signifier cardinal elements of immoderate outpouring offensive. A missing constituent for violative operations is inactive aerial power.

Ukraine has been asking for the West to supply modern combatant jets since the warfare began. So far, nary has been delivered.

Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann of the wide FDP party, who chairs the defence committee of the German parliament had antecedently described reports that Germany had approved the tanks arsenic a alleviation to "the battered and brave Ukrainian people."

"The determination was tough, it took acold excessively long, but successful the extremity it was unavoidable," she said.

The Ukrainian president's main of staff, Andriy Yermak, connected Tuesday called connected Western countries to springiness Kyiv hundreds of tanks to signifier a "crushing fist" against Russia.

"Tanks are 1 of the components for Ukraine to instrumentality to its 1991 borders," helium wrote connected Telegram.

Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to Washington, wrote connected Telegram: "If the United States decides to proviso tanks, past justifying specified a measurement with arguments astir 'defensive weapons' volition decidedly not work.

"This would beryllium different blatant provocation against the Russian Federation."