Ukraine: Kyiv urges Westerners to ‘step up’ arms supplies, Moscow warns

Particular attention is paid to twelve countries, including Germany and Turkey, which have Leopard tanks, which Kyiv tirelessly demands. This Thursday, Ukraine urged its Western allies to “significantly step up” their arms shipments to fight the Russian army.

“We appeal to all partner states that have already provided or are planning to provide military assistance, urging them to significantly increase their contribution,” Ukrainian Defense and Foreign Ministers Oleksiy Reznikov and Dmytro Kuleba said in a joint statement.

The ministers called on a dozen countries, including Turkey, which is mediating the conflict, and Germany, which Ukrainians say is slow to respond to Kyiv’s requests, to provide Leopard 2 tanks as soon as possible,” said one of the most pressing and urgent needs.” for the Ukrainian army.

Decisive meeting

The call came ahead of an important meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine in Ramstein, Germany, to coordinate further assistance to Kyiv as the Russian military throws its forces into the battle for Bakhmut (east).

Thus, international military assistance should be “raised to a new qualitative level,” Alexei Reznikov and Dmitry Kuleba demanded.

At this stage, “Russia retains a significant quantitative advantage in troops, weapons and military equipment,” they lamented, however, despite the already very significant Western financial and military assistance. “We call on all these countries and other countries with the appropriate capabilities to join the initiative to create an international tank coalition to support Ukraine,” the two ministers urged on Thursday.

Moscow warning

They also confirmed that they “guarantee” that Ukraine “will use these weapons responsibly and exclusively for the purpose of protecting the territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.”

Oleksiy Reznikov and Dmitry Kuleba also “welcomed” the “bold and long-awaited decision of the United Kingdom”, announced last Saturday, “to transfer the first squadron of Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine”.

“However, this is not enough to achieve operational goals,” they said in a joint statement. “The Kremlin is determined to further intensify hostilities” and “has not changed its goals for Ukraine, which is to destroy (it),” they warned.

For its part, the Kremlin warned that the supply of long-range weapons to Ukraine by the West, capable of hitting Russian territory in depth, would lead to a dangerous escalation of the armed conflict between Kyiv and Moscow. “This is potentially very dangerous, it will mean the conflict will reach a new level, which does not bode well for European security,” said Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov.